


shed our skin (let the sunlight in)

by Clo



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Outdoor Sex, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:51:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clo/pseuds/Clo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wimbledon 2015 has prank wars, the Federer children being supervillains-in-training, and Roger thinks he might be having a mid-life crisis because he can't stop thinking about Andy Roddick. If this Wimbledon gets any stranger, he’s going to start shipping in his water bottles in case they’re getting spiked. </p>
<p>And then the sex flowers show up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know either. It was so weirdly hot at Wimbledon in 2015 and I was thinking about how much they love their grass as if it's something magical, and in haze of heatstroke I started this nonsense. That it's taken six months is probably a sign just how much a short, silly sex pollen fic got out of hand. I was going to wait 'til it was all done but it's over two-thirds and honestly, I need to force myself to stop rewriting the first part which combined with a new year's resolution to post more fic seemed like a good reason to get this up. I'll try not to take more than a week between updates.
> 
> Thanks to kafkian, who mocked me supportively when this word count went through the roof and right now is probably facepalming at me posting this in chapters instead of all at once. I know, I know. One day I'll write something less ridiculous.
> 
> Well, maybe. In the meantime, this.
> 
> Note: this is sex pollen and people are pushed into doing things they probably wouldn't have done without the extra push, but it's nothing they weren't thinking about anyway and there's definitely an element of choice involved. I break my cardinal rule of 'don't involve the kids' because it's impossible not to these days without going AU but they're talked about only and don't appear onscreen.
> 
> Each part is going to jump around in time over the two weeks of Wimbledon (because there's a pretty obvious endgame when it comes to sex pollen so hey, why not) so pay attention to the day/week titles for each scene cut. You know, if you want to; if you're just here for the porn, have at it.

* * *

 

**_Friday (1 st week, a.m.)_ **

Roger first realises that he’s spent a week pining for Andy Roddick when he's crossing Wimbledon’s underground corridor between locker room and practice courts, the dust of a terrible practice ground into his skin and disbelief jolting him to a stop.

As locations for emotionally-fraught revelations go, he could’ve chosen better. Subterranean Wimbledon is airless and narrow, lit in plastic-magnolia shades that colour everyone an unhealthy yellow. There’s none of the attention to detail Wimbledon lavishes on places where TV cameras might linger, so the walls are pockmarked from the edges of racquet bags and the smell of bleach blends with sweat and the sour rubber of tennis shoes in an eye-watering fug. Not to mention that until the crowds thin out mid-second week it’s always, _always_ crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with players and officials, and all of them are on a personal mission to escape back up top as fast as possible.

Grinding to a halt mid-step is equivalent to slamming on the brakes in speeding traffic and sure, no one’s going to intentionally clothesline Roger Federer but (contrary to locker room gossip) he doesn’t come with a built-in force-field either.

He barely has time to wonder if this is what a mid-life crisis feels like, if he can possibly blame a psychotic break on sunstroke, when a steward with eyes fixed down on her phone - probably because she assumes no one is stupid enough to pause in this stifling hallway of misery - slams into him. Momentum tips them sideways into Kevin Anderson and a junior probably on the way to practice, racquet bags crashing to the floor and the metallic clang as cans of practice balls scatter underfoot.

Embarrassing emotional moments get shoved aside as Roger fights not to trip ass over feet – and god, if he’s given up skiing for fear of injury only to break a leg in Wimbledon’s basement, he won’t be held responsible for unleashing years of biting his tongue on every journalist who asks a wise-cracking question.

Keeps his balance just barely, bracing himself against the battered wall but the steward goes down with a curse that might get her outlawed from Wimbledon for crimes against British civility. The junior trips, pirouettes with wildly-waving arms, and catches himself with flourish against Roger’s shoulder. The speed with which triumph wipes to horror when he looks up to see exactly who he’s manhandling would almost be funny.

_Would,_ if mortification wasn’t already crawling up in Roger’s chest as he registers the grinning faces of their audience of - shit, every damn player and official in the corridor that they’ve brought to a standstill.

He doesn’t see who starts the round of applause in the crowd but Stan’s shit-eating grin as he lounges against the wall has _guilty as fuck_ written all over it and, after helping the blushingly apologetic steward to her feet, Roger snatches up a loose tennis ball to throw it at his fellow Swiss’ head. Probably too hard but then, it’s going to be all over the locker room in an hour that Federer just got three cheers for getting dogpiled in the practice court corridor and he’s not feeling in a particularly gracious mood, what with his _mid-life crisis_ and all.

Stan ducks the attack anyway, laughing when it misses by a mile and goes to retrieve the ball ( _like a good little dog_ , Roger resists a sour urge to remark) before coming over. Handling it to the junior, who’s busy collecting the scattered equipment apparently as an excuse to avoid looking Roger in the eye, he claps Roger’s shoulder.

‘Graceful like a one-legged stork in your old age, eh?’ he says in French, tone the slyly barbed tease he’s been using with Roger lately. He must’ve been practicing on one of the main courts because dust is streaking the sweat beading his face, smudged in careless handprints over his formerly-white shirt, and Roger is about to snipe back that it looks like Wimbledon beat him up before he realises he doesn’t look much better. The British weather’s not been kind to any of them this week, heat baking the ground beneath their feet to dead grass and dry, breeze-borne grit that sticks to sweat-damp skin, rubs blisters between hand and racquet, and leaves dark tide-marks of dirt in the showers. Roger can feel it itch beneath his shirt, knows the dust is smeared across his face from his own practice, so instead he forces a smile that’s lighter than he feels.

‘I can’t help it if no one appreciates good footwork when they see it.’

‘Sure Rogi,’ Stan says, still grinning, hand still gripping Roger’s shoulder with the unpleasant damp-warmth of sweat and overheated tennis player fresh from practice. ‘Do me a favour and use moves like that next time we play, yeah?'

‘I guess you could use the advantage,’ Roger says unthinking, and bites his lip as Stan’s lips pull in tight, a brief flicker of hurt. His hand on Roger’s shoulder tightens too, moving to _grip_ rather than _touch_ and Roger has his mouth open on apology when Kevin clears his throat from behind them.

‘Hey Roger, your bag,’ he says when Roger looks round, holding out the strap to Roger’s practice bag. ‘Sorry, I grabbed the wrong one.’

Roger takes it with a shake of his head, relieved his mental walkabout hadn’t taken out anyone more volatile than the steady South African; he’s afraid to picture the fight that would’ve resulted if he’d tripped, say, Kyrgios, who’s been stomping around this past week as if he’s taking the British weather’s attempt to outdo Australia as a personal affront. At least Kevin only looks amused and Roger lets himself smile, rueful at the edges.

‘Nothing to apologise for, it was my fault. Sorry.’

‘Call it a point you owe me next time we play,’ Kevin offers, mouth tilting up enough to make it a joke and Roger’s halfway to a laugh when the South African looks past him, smile creasing to a frown. ‘You feeling okay Stan?’

The hand had been gripping Roger’s shoulder yanks back, so fast he isn’t sure if he imagined the brush of fingertips up the back of his neck but he turns to glare at Stan anyway, wondering if he needs to check his back for a _Kick Me_ sign. It hadn’t been all that funny even when they were drunk after the last Davis Cup tie, but the heat is forcing everyone up an extra notch of crazy this week and the tour’s usual practical jokes are reflecting the upswing in pressure. Someone dumped a tub of orange dye in Murray’s ice bath yesterday, and Novak’s sneezed so relentlessly all week – with ‘allergies’ - that there’s a locker room betting pool on whether someone’s filled his racquet bag with pepper. Being Roger Federer usually grants him some immunity but Stan’s known him too long to be intimidated, likes to offset the balance by pranking what the rest of the tour is afraid to touch.

But there’s nothing like a grin on Stan’s face when Roger turns, eyes wide and fresh sweat gleaming on his upper lip as shakes his head. ‘I’m fine,’ he says in French, somewhat rude by unwritten tour etiquette when Kevin asked in English, and he jerks back when Roger reaches out in concern. ‘It’s- I have a thing. See you later.’

There’s an awkward pause as they watch him disappear into the crowd, flow of foot traffic resumed along the corridor now the show’s over because it’s Wimbledon and no one has time to hesitate when they aren’t getting something out of it. After a second, Kevin hums out a noncommittal noise.

‘Weird week, yeah?’ he says, uncertainty dipping down at the end. ‘Must be the heat.’

‘Yeah,’ Roger agrees, and surreptitiously reaches up his back, checking that there’s no sign stuck there. ‘Let’s hope the weather cools soon.’

There’s nothing on his back but humiliation from tripping half the corridor up keeps his cheeks flushed warm until he gets back to the locker room anyway, half-imagined laughter at his heels until the door swings shut behind him. Thankfully the room’s almost empty, everyone on his side of the draw attempting to practice before the heat of the day escalates, and everyone else keen to avoid the smell that lingers when you cram dozens of tennis players together into a thirty-five degree sweatbox.

Dropping his bag, Roger eases down on the bench in front of his locker as if he’s just taking a moment to contemplate a shower, kicking off his grass-stained shoes – okay, almost _peeling_ off, and maybe he does need to stop making a point to the media of floating around serenely, disdaining everyone else losing their heads over ‘just a little bit of sun’. If he _is_ delirious with sunstroke those headlines are going to come back to bite him on the ass.

It’s entirely reasonable after a hard practice to take a moment to check his phone, to see if Mirka’s updated him on Leo’s teething miseries, if Stefan’s changed his mind about coming to lunch. They’re nothing like excuses at _all,_ he tells himself.

Though neither of those would cause the tight knot of unhappiness in his throat as he flips through to his messages, to the one he got mid-practice. He’d been so on edge for the rest of it that not a single serve made it inside the line.

_Any_ line.

And that’s ridiculous; it’s just Andy apologising that he’s had to change his flight by a few days, no longer due in middle Saturday. Always agreed that he’d start actually working with the BBC the second week of the fortnight but he’d planned to get in early, _remind myself how tennis scores work,_ he’d texted Roger back when the news first broke, _though I’m pretty sure I’ve got it. It goes fifteen thirty forty-five, right?_

So it’s not a problem for Wimbledon that _somethings come up, landing Tues now;_ not a problem for Andy either because he doesn’t sound worried. Not that many of his messages – to Roger, at least - ever sound anything other than teasing, off-hand, even though it’s been years since they bothered to keep to the careful pleasantries of rivals. Maybe a few old-school fans might be disappointed at less opportunity to pounce on the American wandering about but that’s not anything like a commitment Andy made, no definite plans or anything dragging him to England any earlier than he absolutely has to be there.

Roger runs his thumb over the second line, _sorry about sunday practice_ , and deletes the reply box that pops up, tucking the phone back into his bag as he grabs his towel. Something’s come up, so Andy’s probably busy with that, and Roger needs to wash the film of sweat off before he sticks permanently to the bench. Seve will find him someone to hit with on Sunday, always happy to prove himself useful when there’s so little to be done on the tennis side, other than _keep doing what you’re doing, just try to stop the inconvenient ageing thing until they discover the fountain of youth, okay._

Anyway, it’s _Andy_ who bailed on their not-even-certain-it-was-just-an-suggestion practice. Roger doesn’t owe him an acknowledgement, any meaningless platitudes asking if everything is fine, if it’s Brooklyn, if Andy’s shoulder is acting up again. Not when Andy knows him well enough to see right through it, reads him like a newspaper - _The Federer Times_ he joked once, _can I run the agony aunt column for people you’ve beaten?  
_

Roger’s a better liar than he used to be, but enough to fool Andy, anywhere outside of a tennis court? He’s not sure that’s a match he can ever win.

None of which dislodges the knot in his throat as he turns his face up to the spray in the shower, slicking his skin free of his terrible practice, of the gritty film of dust, stripping himself clean with rough hands because alone, here, there’s no one to watch his frustration. All the determined happiness of this week that’s been a thin veneer for anticipation, looking up with expectation around every corner, he’d been convinced was just because it’s _Wimbledon_ , his favourite tournament, the hallowed halls of all his best memories.

And if he’d been listening particularly for one voice, caught breathless by every glimpse of gleaming hazel eyes, he’d tried to fool himself that’s only because this is Wimbledon, and for years of his life that also meant Andy. The ache in his chest at Andy blowing off their first chance to talk, properly, in- no, actually, labelling it makes it feel longer than it is, so he won’t think _years._ Barely that, caught up at that Fox interview Andy asked for in 2013 and rarely a month goes by when they don’t text each other, congratulations on producing offspring or birthdays or for winning something worth appreciating, outright praise usually deflected with a joke that has Roger grinning in the car to the airport.

The last few months though it’s been occasional parenting advice, weary messages texted back and forth at three a.m. with a twin on one arm and his phone in the other hand. Roger’s lost count of the nights he’s rocked cranky babies to sleep over the soft sound of his laughter with every text, Andy inventing more and more outrageous defences for Charlene colouring Roger’s one-of-a-kind racquet bag in lime green marker, or Lenny refusing to sleep more than an hour at a time for three months straight.

_Isn’t it obvious?_ he’d written, finally, the day Roger texted him a photo of Mirka’s Spring Collection Prada pumps turned into makeshift sailboats and set adrift in the hotel pool, _this is the universe fixing the Federer imbalance. If you’re all perfect the rest of us would give up so instead you spawned supervillains. by which logic my kid is going to be the next roger federer. Score for me ;)_

Roger had laughed and then quickly deleted the message in case an in-mourning-for-limited-edition-Prada Mirka found it. She’s much fonder of Andy these days, almost affectionate whenever Roger passes the phone over for her to say hello, but she’s also just about friendly enough with Brooklyn to get Andy put on nappy-duty for entire year if she knew he’d called their children supervillains.

Even if, he’d reflected as his wife reached too far towards the bobbing paper sails and overbalanced with a shriek into the pool, secretly she’d agree.

So, it isn’t as if they haven’t _been_ talking. If he calls, Andy answers mostly, or apologises for missing it later. Even on tour they weren’t exactly going to dinner every night; days, entire weeks, would go by without a word until he walked into a locker room somewhere in the world, Andy’s broad smile would flash a greeting and when Mirka called to ask where he was he was always surprised to see a five minute conversation had become forty, an hour. Once an entire afternoon, that time in New York when Andy pulled him aside with _retirement_ whispered between just them in a mix of misery and honest relief.

But there’s never been anything like an obligation between them, not like Stan expects Roger to prioritise their practices, or the way Roger’s seen Andy drop in a heartbeat everything, from TV interviews, to dates with models that were all legs and breasts, for Mardy Fish. They don’t work like that, never have. They’re easy in familiarity, held a little distant by past rivalry but Roger’s always been _sure_ of Andy, of his affection, that the rock beneath the turmoil of their friendship is solid.

Taking for granted perhaps, that it would always be there, but now Andy has obligations away from tennis, pregnant wife and a new career demanding time that Roger had no right to in the first place, it’s becoming- well not harder, not exactly.

But Roger’s noticed that he’s the one initiating their conversations more, that there’s a few more _sorry, got to run to a thing, good luck with the match_ drop-outs than there used to be. Andy, finding more reasons not to talk to him, more often. They’re both busy, it’s understandable, but Roger thought they’d fix that when they were back in the same country, in the same city, falling back into the well-worn paths they’d walked for half their lives and Andy’s smile there to greet him when he walked into the locker room. It coloured Wimbledon with an extra haze of excitement this year, the thought of _what was_.

Now if Roger doesn’t make the quarters, they might not even see each other.

Leaning against the shower wall, letting himself slump where no one can see him, Roger sighs. The world is moving on and sometimes, with every new hundredth repetition of the _don’t you think you should be retired with the rest of the fossils_ question, he feels like he’s standing still.

Or maybe he’s just jealous that Andy’s found newer, better things to fill his time, ones that aren’t a constant reminder of all the times Roger broke his heart.

But as he gets dressed, heads out to meet Seve for lunch, and for the entire rest of the day, he can’t bring himself to reply to the message.

****

**_Wednesday (2 nd week, a.m.)_ **

When Roger walks into the golden entrance hall to Centre Court, it's early enough that there's no buzz of people outside. Somewhere beyond the gates are crowds, and the Queue, and London stirring into a Wednesday morning rush hour but here, inside the exclusive walls of Wimbledon’s hallowed ground, there's just the echo of his footsteps, a sweet smell lingering from the flower displays, and morning light slanting soft-edged through the glass doors.

He's been here alone often enough not to feel guilty about all but sneaking in - unlike the times he's snuck in even earlier than this to soak in the atmosphere without distraction, or late that one time in '04 when he'd met Andy to toast their semi-final success. Enticing Roger in with a text that was more than half-dare, Andy smuggled in champagne in a water bottle and, with the darkness outside creeping in despite the dim spotlights from the stairs, he’d spilled sticky-sweet Moet over Roger's hands when they tried to fill the paper cups stolen from the players' restaurant. They'd both kept bubbling over into laughter, breathless with the illicitness and shared success, Andy grinning as Roger asked if getting him drunk was part of Andy’s game plan to win.

There’d been no repeat performance after the semi-finals in '09, too far distant from the naivety of youth, and Roger deleted his _congratulations, I'm glad you won_ text without hitting send. He couldn't shake the feeling Andy might take it as patronising and he'd known he was probably going to win Wimbledon again from the moment he saw the scores for Andy's semi-final flash up, even if the knowledge sank like a weight in his stomach rather than coming as a relief. For a moment he'd wondered if he should be waiting with champagne at midnight anyway, if it'd make it easier. If Andy might possibly show up.

He’d gone to bed early instead and he'd been glad when he won. At least neither of them could use hangovers as an excuse.

Andy's not here now, emptiness loud in the way only utter silence could be. No stewards, no cleaning staff polishing up for the BBC cameras later either and that's odd enough for Roger to hesitate at the foot of the stairs, glancing around. Okay, hardly a surprise that Andy's not here when Roger's so early for their interview. He’d rolled out of bed before the alarm after a night of tossing, jerking awake from hazy dreams that he couldn’t quite grasp, leaving only sounds half-stifled in his throat and heat itching beneath his skin.

When Mirka saw him off at the door, the way she slumped against the wall suggested his restlessness meant neither of them got any sleep but then, she didn’t have interviews with former tennis players to look presentable for. He’d had to make an actual effort not to resent her rumpled pyjamas or the fact that she could head back to bed, at least until twin-shaped harbingers of chaos dragged her out of it.

But no matter how early there's usually _someone_ hovering in the corners of Centre's inner sanctum, just to make sure no wayward players decided to carve their names into the walls, or stick gum beneath the chairs. After what happened with Kyrgios yesterday, he'd have thought they might insist stewards sleep here in case insubordination was contagious. Though they might demand special Kyrgios hazard pay; the gossip Mirka relayed to him last night suggested Lahyani's nose was actually broken.

If this Wimbledon gets any stranger, Roger’s going to start shipping in his water bottles in case they’re getting spiked.

But there'd been no extra security on the way in, guards at the doors half-awake and disinterested as they glanced at his pass. The corridors were echoing and empty, no one around apart from a couple of cleaners whispering together in an alcove, and a physio Roger vaguely recognised who openly stared as Roger gave him a nod in passing. Probably wondering what the hell he was doing here so early, although it was pretty rude all the same and Roger felt unease prickle down his back with the weight of the guy’s eyes on him until he rounded the next corner. Last week he’d have put it down to the weather making everyone crazy but it’s not hot anymore, British summer finally conceding just as the groundskeepers looked about to burst into tears from trying to keep the courts green and it’s almost pleasant this morning, breeze raising gooseflesh over Roger’s arms before the guards waved him inside.

At least he won’t have to field yet more weather questions in his post-match press later. Murray wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was a national obsession.

Which is when he remembers the last thing he heard Murray say, the entire incident from yesterday he’s successfully repressed until now and he feels his cheeks heat, looking hastily around for a distraction. It’d be typical of Andy to walk in right now and ask why he’s blushing, pressing the point with the grin he can’t seem to resist whenever Roger tries (fails) to fumble out a deflection, and the thought has Roger crossing to the frosted-glass doors leading out on court. He’ll wait for Andy outside and let the breeze cool his mortification, hopefully enough that he won’t be bright red through the entire interview. Giving the Kipling quote over the doors a rueful glance – he’s not sure the showers yesterday qualify as a disaster but he’s pretty certain running away in embarrassment can’t ever be counted a triumph – he pushes outside.

Instantly the world tilts, eyes fluttering shut as he gasps in air gone heavy with sweetness.

God- what _is_ it? Inside he’d put it down to the flower displays but they’re behind him now, behind glass, and this- this is almost a physical coating over his tongue, his teeth, like falling into a pool of syrup, melting like a delicious dessert in his mouth. Dizzy with it, he reaches out to brace himself against the doors and misses, stumbling off-balance until his shoulder connects with the wall, dull flare of bruising but at least the support lets him catch his breath. Trying to make it shallow through his teeth because for all the times he’s walked out on Centre Court, it’s never intoxicated him just with the air before.

Leaning against the wall, he tries to blink his vision clear but there’s a haze like dust stirred up by the soft breeze, and it stings enough to make his eyes water.

This can’t be good, but it’s _Centre Court_. If he’d been asked to name the five safest places in England, he’d probably rank Centre about fourth – just below the Tower of London, and about as well-guarded by terrifyingly lethal security people. There can’t be anything seriously wrong.

Maybe it’s something they’ve sprayed to help damp the pollen. Maybe Novak found time to complain about it yesterday, although Roger isn’t sure what he’d expect Wimbledon officials to do about it. It’s a _grass court tournament_ ; they can’t exactly turn off Nature whenever it’s inconvenient, though he wouldn’t put it past Novak to ask them to try. Or, perhaps it’s the paint around the court reacting to the suddenly-cool air after baking all last week. Perhaps someone spilled something, in the walkway or the stands.

Either way, it’ll definitely affect his match later if he’s too dazed to stand upright and that thought drives him up from his slouch, stumbling toward the court. The close confinement of the walkway probably intensifies whatever it is, but if he can get out on court and assess for himself if the open expanse of space helps, he’ll know if he needs to petition for a switch to Court One. Or at the very least acclimatise to the dizzying swirl of sweetness until he’s steady enough to hit a tennis ball, seizing this unintended advantage of getting to fall on his face when no one’s looking instead of on live international television.

Through the fog, he’s aware following the very thing making him stumble dizzily against the walls could be a stupid move, especially if it’s actually something they’ve sprayed, but it’s not as if there were any warning signs. The smell doesn’t have the unpleasant edge of chemicals either – in fact, it smells familiar, something like- honeysuckle? He’d thought it was flowers inside after all-

_Oh_ he thinks as he turns the corner onto the court itself and stops dead at the edge of what _was_ the grass. _I guess that would be why._

What was Centre Court, pride of Wimbledon and envy of tennis events around the world, isn’t there anymore.

Rather, the smooth expanse of green is now a riot of flowers covering every inch of grass, each stem an inflorescence of white-tipped petals with burnt-orange hearts, like a thousand tiny fires glowing against the light and shadows cast by the clouds, laid out at Roger’s feet. There’s not a patch of grass visible beneath the dark, spreading leaves, only bright petals and patches of worn bare earth around the baselines as if whoever did this wanted to leave a mocking reminder of the court underneath.

It's probably a sign that he's getting too old for this that his first thought isn't how this will affect his chances of winning, but to wonder exactly _how_ much career-ending, apoplexy-causing rage will be in Wimbledon’s unofficial reaction. Firstly from the damage to their cherished grass, and secondly because the orange clashes so vibrantly with the Wimbledon colour scheme.

The overly-frosty memo he’d received about those orange-soled shoes a couple of years back suggests _homicidal rage_ may be underestimating the response, doubly so for the disrespect to Wimbledon’s sacred lawns and the lack of attention detail – if they’re going to destroy the court, he imagines the officials seething, at least they could do it with _class._

This time he might just count _running away_ as an acceptable game plan before he catches any blame for this- _whatever_ it is.

Potentially an odd coincidence, the orange and his shoes though. He’s made it pretty unscathed through the ongoing prank war so far and he wonders uncomfortably if it’s because this is the payoff they’ve been planning for him, if he’s being filmed by hidden cameras right now. Andy would’ve had to be in on it, to request the interview, and it’s surprising how much that stings when Roger thought- well nevermind, clearly he’d been wrong if it was all just a joke.

Then- ‘ _Whoa_ ,’ Andy says coming out from the walkway behind him, genuine awe to it that means he’s probably not in on it because there’s nothing like laughter threaded through his tone and Andy’s not the type to drag a wind-up out, would’ve been crowing _gotcha_ the instant he walked out. He leans around Roger to get a better view of the unexpected meadow that used to be Centre Court, whistling awe through his teeth and he's warm at Roger's shoulder, a solid weight just like their days of shared trophy ceremonies when they'd press together for photos.

It's the shock at the state of the court, Roger decides firmly, that makes him overwhelmingly want to lean into the American for comfort, only shock and not relief canting his body back into the promise of Andy’s steady heat. Nothing else.

‘Is this a prank?’ Andy asks, not backing away from his cheerful invasion of Roger’s personal space, close enough for Roger to swear he feels something prickling between them, fizz of electric-sensation shivering over his skin everywhere they almost touch. ‘Because last I heard, Safin was still freezing his balls off in Russia and I didn't think anyone else hated grass _this_ much.’

‘I don’t-’ Losing the thread of what he was about to say, Roger swallows. ‘I thought maybe it was you.’

The answering laugh is a warm puff of air across the back of his neck, Andy _so close._ Roger’s so startled by a sudden clench of heat that he almost misses Andy’s amused, ‘Hey, I’m a respectable BBC commentator now. I only get to dick about when I’m off-duty.’

Before Roger can form a response – most likely _you might want to give that memo to McEnroe_ \- the sun slips out from behind the clouds overhead.

Instantly what’s left of Centre Court lights up into brilliance, reflected glare sweeping across the blaze of orange and white petals too bright, like looking at the blinding heart of sunset. It drives Roger back a step, flinching on instinct with streaky after-images behind screwed-shut eyes, and he stumbles over Andy’s feet, arms windmilling out for balance as he tries not to fall.

Immediately, easily, Andy's arm catches him around his waist as if he has every right to touch, thumb tucking between the waistband of Roger's jeans and bare skin _._ His entire body _pressing_ into Roger shoulder-to-hip; not hard, brush rather than grind, barely enough for body heat to seep through the layers of cotton between them, but enough that he can feel the rise of Andy's chest on an indrawn breath.

The butterflies in Roger's stomach perform complicated backflips, mouth gone traitorously dry. _Don’t think about it, don’t._ This shouldn’t even be _registering_ ; he’s touched Andy plenty of times over the years, warm handshakes and hugs over the net, not to mention that one time they’d collided when Roger stepped out the showers and only lightening-reflexes kept his towel between them and an embarrassment of bare skin on skin.

So it’s nothing noteworthy to have Andy catch him from falling – although it is, perhaps, in that he hasn’t let go.

No, _no_ , this is just from _that_ conversation with Mirka putting ideas in his head and he refuses to be distracted by it. It’s not as if there aren’t more important concerns right now, his thoughts skipping over the list too fast to really focus - they should be reporting the illegal flowers, although someone probably already knows, it's _Wimbledon_ , there are security cameras, surely, or finding somewhere else to be before the groundskeepers descend in a wrathful, flower-murdering army and they somehow catch the blame.

At the very least he should step away from the _hug_ which is what he's calling this, because all the other words he knows – in any language - for Andy's thumb rubbing circles into the curve of his hipbone under his jeans are definitely not appropriate when they're standing in the premier tennis arena in the world. With potentially god-knows how many Wimbledon staff watching from the stands, oh god, they’re probably being watched, he needs to _move away_. Find some space before this passes the point of casual, before any onlookers get a photo of this compromising position and the story shifts from _prank_ _flowers_ to _illicit groping on Centre_. Already it’s gone on longer than any of their hugs at the net, even those ones where Andy wasn’t shattered into rough pieces and every dejected line of him screamed _misery_ as he stood at the centre of attention for the interviews, cracking jokes around his heartbreak.

That thought weighs like an anchor, rooting Roger’s feet when he should be pulling free. Yanking away too sharp, reacting to Andy’s simple touch with denial when he’s already denied him everything he ever wanted isn’t an option. He isn’t sure he could risk earning the look on Andy’s face that he’d seen last time they stood together on this court, the shuttered devastation behind his fake smile.

That is- he’s assuming Andy even wants this, to- what? To touch him?

Which, given shape as a thought, seems _ridiculous._ For all that the shivery trace of Andy’s thumb beneath his jeans suggests he’s not averse to a little groping, there’s nothing to say it’s intentional, that this overreaction isn’t just Roger reading this from all the wrong angles because it’s what _he_ wants.

Because it is, realisation tinged with guilt beneath the haze of vagueness, the world all soft edges everywhere he’s not pressed into Andy. Mirka was right, for all he thought he’d kept it hidden even from himself, dawning acceptance in the coil of arousal shivering out from the brush of Andy’s hands over his skin, the razor-edged pull of desire that he’d half-forgotten with Mirka, lost in the comfortable-as-worn-in-shoes pattern of their affection.

He _wants_.

Only the thought _why now_ gives him pause, wondering why he’s suddenly so willing to trade dignity for this and- oh, the _flowers._ Perhaps the pollen has more in it than sweet dizziness and if this is a prank, perhaps it’s meant for more than laughter. Perhaps the lowered inhibitions are an intentional side effect and even now the player responsible is cackling to himself in the stands with a camera.

Desperately, Roger thinks _move away, pull away, you need to get off this court before you both humiliate yourselves._

Except, despite the sun it's cooler than it's been for days, air shivering with a breeze that drifts across the flowers and curls up around Roger like hands, like a physical touch. Presses him back into Andy who hums a soft sound of surprise, fingers flexing against Roger's waist suddenly hard enough to bruise. Pain cuts through the haze enough, has Roger glancing down but the automatic protest – some of them still have to _play_ tennis, although maybe not on this court, now - dies on his tongue when he _sees_ the curve of Andy's hands over his hips, chapped knuckles and blunt, strong fingers so well-known from handshakes and hugs. The unfamiliarity of them, now, body heat and rasp of calluses, splayed pale against the darker tan of his own skin, has something vivid and hot pooling in his stomach and he trembles, held firm only by Andy’s grip tightening around him, mapping red, raw scratches where bitten nails scrape bare skin.

Wait, when had his shirt ridden up? Or been _pushed_?

‘Andy?’ he says and it comes out slow, thick with the dizzying sweetness of honeysuckle. When the breeze gusts again, the ripple of bright petals seems to tilt the court off-kilter beneath his feet, or maybe he sways with it, anchored only by the burning point of contact that is Andy's touch, sparks of electric-bright sensation shivering out from the warmth. So sensitive, he thinks he might be able to read every line on Andy’s palms where they press against him. ‘What- what are we doing?’

Hot breath against the back of his neck, Andy's exhale trembling over an almost-silent sound that could equally be a protest, or an interrogative shaped loosely like Roger's name, Andy Roddick speechless for once in his life. When does manage to form actual words, warm, chapped lips brush the curve of Roger's ear and the flutter of heat it sets off almost hides the rueful catch to his voice.

‘I-I can't let go.’

_Can’t,_ not _don’t want_ to. Compulsion, not desire. Roger finds a moment of clarity, bracing himself against the flash of resignation like a life buoy.

‘That's ridiculous,’ he says and he’s startled to hear the breathy rasp to his own voice. They’ve barely touched; they’re not horny teenagers anymore, they should have more self-control. _Roger_ should, shouldn’t let himself have this just because he’s abruptly remembering all the times he’s pushed away his dreams of this, avoided the _what if_ of scandal in favour of his careers and glittering, cold trophies _._ ‘We’re just-’

Can’t finish, doesn’t have the words to describe what this _just is_ , so he changes it to, ‘Here, let me.’

As he reaches down to pry Andy's fingers loose, he notices the sheen to his own hands and Andy's, the film of yellow on his jeans. It’s pollen, the flower pollen brushed free from the laden stems, drifting up on the breeze to dust a golden glow all over them both. Smearing beneath his fingertips as he runs them over Andy’s skin, and only after a fascinated few seconds in which he memorises the way Andy shivers at the touch does he remember he was supposed to be pulling free.

He doesn’t want to, a visceral urge to keep pressing into Andy’s warmth that’s rooted instinct-deep. Everything is just slightly off-focus, hypersaturated in gold-edged light from the sun and reflected back from the flowers, and Roger’s lost in the press of Andy’s hand against his own side, the way his own fingers interlink with Andy’s, the contrast between Andy’s broad palms and his own as their twined hands slide down to fumble at the button of his jeans.

There’s a reason that should worry him, he knows distantly, but more important is how uncomfortably tight the denim is. How much he’d like it off so Andy’s hands can touch him _everywhere_.

‘Roger,’ Andy whispers, mouth brushing Roger’s ear in a rush of hot breath still but there’s tongue behind it now, tracing the delicate curve and Roger barely swallows an embarrassing sound before it slips out. ‘For all I’m enjoying your habit of taking whatever you want, we have to stop before someone yells _get a room_ , yeah?’

Oh- _god_ , like an electric jolt of realisation that they’re all but putting on a show in the middle of _Centre Court_ , circled by TV cameras and beneath a wide open sky. Roger yanks free with an involuntary gasp of loss as he puts a stumbled stride between them.

Pollen puffs up around his feet as he steps on the flowers, clinging to his jeans in bright fireworks of powder and he freezes, trying to hold his breath. Still hazed with whatever intoxicating drug is in the flowers and the air, need to go back to touching Andy like the razor-edge of withdrawal shredding his insides but he wraps his arms around himself instead, over his rucked-up t-shirt so the brush of his own skin is a tingle of shock.

He can’t turn around because he’s so obviously hard in his jeans, constriction of fabric a torture and he digs his nails into his own arms to keep from reaching down to adjust himself. God, what are they doing? In _public_ , no less. Can’t remember the last time he felt this turned on and hungry for touch even behind closed doors, desperate to come so hard he sees stars, and a moan grits out between his teeth without conscious permission.

‘Roger?’ Andy sounds like he’s trying to keep his voice steady even as it fractures. ‘You okay? I think maybe we need to get our asses-’

Great, now Roger’s hyper-aware that Andy’s probably staring at his ass. He wishes he’d worn looser jeans.

‘-off this court because god, this is going to sound weird but I don’t know how long I can stand here without touching you.’

_Touch me_ , Roger thinks, almost says before over a decade of willpower in the face of journalists has him biting his own tongue hard to hold it back. If he lets himself cross that line, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop.

No, _knows_ he won’t. The half-moon scratches he’s digging into his own arms are all that’s keeping him grounded, distracting from the wetness he can feel soaking through his jeans. So turned on he’s dripping with it, and even if they get off this court he doesn’t think that’s going away on its own. Except, oh god, the only place with any privacy is the locker rooms and they’d be in there _together_ ; he swallows another moan at the thought of Andy listening to him jerk off in the next shower cubicle.

He’s not even going to consider the newspaper headlines if they don’t make it to the locker room and someone catches them. Or if this _is_ a malicious prank and they’re being filmed from the stands, if a video of them with composure visibly disintegrating makes it online. No one would be writing about Rafa’s early loss any more, that’s for sure.

‘Roger.’ The strain in Andy’s voice is all too clear. ‘Fuck, this is- I’m going to have to- Tell me you’re okay before I leave. Just nod or _something_. Please.’

It’s the _please_ that does it, the sincerity trembling in that one word. Andy always honest but hardly ever taking it seriously; Roger’s so used to the thread of amusement colouring every word that the lack of it has him looking back at the American in concern.

Later, much later, aching all over in his own bed, he’ll mark that decision out as the instant dignified retreat ceased to be an option.

Because Andy looks desperate, and aroused, and _wrecked_ , sweat gleaming in the hollow of skin exposed by his dishevelled shirt collar, tie gone or never there to start with. Hair too short to stick up at angles like it used to but he’s clearly been running his fingers through it, sweat-slick and tangled, although now his hands are clenched to fists at his sides. He’s blinking in a way that suggests nothing is quite in focus and, when he meets Roger’s stare, the look in his eyes is-

Starving. Staring at Roger as if he’s a career Slam and sex on legs rolled into one, as if nothing but a thread of common sense is preventing him lunging forward to just- take. Breathing hard even though he’s not moved, broad shoulders hunched beneath the fabric of the smart shirt he’s wearing, combination of that and the grey suit pants jarring when they’re out here, enclosed in the silent, empty stands of Centre Court.

_Should be in white_ , Roger thinks wildly, remembering all the times he’s stood almost exactly here watching Andy out the corner of his eye, the way daring smiles faded to despair over the years and the yearning ache seated below his ribs in ’09, when all he’d wanted to do was reach out. As if there’d been any comfort he could offer with his hands full of trophy.

There’s nothing in them now. Before he can talk himself out of it, this time, he uncurls his cramped fingers from where they’re digging bruises into his forearm and holds out a hand, mouth open to say _Andy_ or maybe _please._

He’ll never know which because the instant Andy registers the clear offer, that Roger’s making a deliberate choice, he’s moving. Two quick strides and his hands are in Roger’s hair, relief of touch like a fresh high, tilting back his head with a sharp tug.

And then they’re kissing, Roger’s eyes fluttering shut because- _oh._

Andy’s mouth is warm, with rough-chapped lips but he kisses as if this is a competitive sport, too, and winning means plundering Roger’s mouth until he forgets how to breathe. One hand still gripping a handful of Roger’s hair, too tight, spark of pain a delicious grounding through the dizziness and Roger fists a handful of Andy’s shirt, grips bruises into the curve of his shoulder to keep them pressed together because the dissatisfied ache he’s carried for a week is finally dissolving into heat and arousal, shivering helplessly beneath the shocking comfort of Andy’s lips on his.

Yes, _this,_ he thinks frantically through the haze, feeling the lithe shift of muscles through fine cotton, the new fascination of shoulders broader than he’s used to and the hard press of Andy as they grind together. They both jolt when Roger slides his thigh between Andy’s, pressing up with thin suit material doing nothing to mute the friction of denim and Andy groans into the kiss, hips stuttering into the pressure. This, as good as Roger could ever have let himself imagine. Better.

Vaguely he’s aware that they’re staggering backwards, feet tangling as their balance goes and the world tilts for real this time. No way to catch themselves with their hands full of each other and Roger has a panicked second to wonder how much pollen they can breathe in before they lose any pretence of self-control – if they haven’t already - before he lands hard on his back on bare earth, Andy’s elbow catching him in the ribs.

‘Sorry!’ Andy apologises, rasped and desperate at Roger’s gasp, seemingly trying to push himself upright and away. Their legs are still tangled so all he achieves is grinding them together, Roger moaning with a different brand of shock at the surge of heat. ‘Shit shit, did I break you? My first Wimbledon interview and I break Roger Federer, god. If my name was on the trophy they’d scratch it off.’

‘I’m okay,’ Roger says, though the fall thumped all the air from his lungs and his voice sounds like someone ran it through a lawnmower, ragged at the edges. In the corner of his eye he sees flowers, a few inches away but beneath him there’s only dust, and the itch of dead grass through his t-shirt. They’ve fallen on the bare patch around the baseline, blind dumb luck pushing them away from the pollen but that can’t last, amazing that they’ve even made it this far. ‘Andy, if someone sees us-’

‘I know, I know. Fuck, what the fuck are we doing?’ Bowing his head to rest on Roger’s shoulder, Andy makes a wordless sound of frustration. He’s a warm, heavy weight, back curving beneath Roger’s hands - he hadn’t made a decision to let them wander, not consciously, but _not_ touching is fast becoming impossible – and the move rocks them together, pressure exactly where Roger needs it.

And oh okay, _that_ entirely embarrassing sound could only be called a whimper, although the way Andy trembles against him in answer is fascinating and- no, _no_. They’re on _Centre Court_.

‘If we could get to the locker room-’ he starts and then hesitates, stunned by the insinuation. Though there’s obviously only one way this is going, pretty clear from the way they’re pushing together, aborted jerks of their hips that neither of them are acknowledging but neither of them are putting a stop to either. Andy’s panting into the dip of his shoulder, one hand digging furrows into the dirt beside them while the other is curled into Roger’s hair, cushioning his head from the ground. Roger feels a flicker of affection at the consideration, that Andy’s being careful with him even high on sex flowers.

Because sex _is_ where this is going. Roger’s so hard he aches with it, burning beneath his skin with the need to be touched, to keep Andy close even if every seat in the stands was full and Sue was standing there with a microphone, waiting for an interview. If she could get the questions out; Roger’s seen her blush when Andy flirts with her, so he doubts she’d be able to look either of them in the eye again if she’d watched this.

But, thinking about it- after that encounter in the showers yesterday, he’s developing some deep suspicions about said sex flowers and their reach, their _influence_ , horror flickering up at just how badly this could’ve gone with stands full of tennis fans. Not to mention a locker room full of players who wouldn’t hesitate to in running out for a look at the ultimate prank of Centre Court-the-flower-field. Roger thinks of his practice yesterday, the breathless, heaving press of the crowd as they clawed at the fences.

He’s overcome in an instant of blinding relief that it was Andy alone who walked out here after him, that he’s not humiliating himself with fifteen thousand fans. Or worse, Novak; yesterday was enough awkward between them to last the rest of their careers.

Reconsiders relief as an option though when Andy muffles an agonised sound against his collarbone, biting down until Roger’s sure there’ll be teeth marks through his t-shirt. He’s trembling, tense beneath Roger’s hands even as he rocks his hips and the burn of Roger’s arousal cools a little beneath a rush of doubt.

Suddenly he’s unsure if Andy counts this as humiliating himself – if the kiss was a declaration of intention Roger took it as, or if Andy’s been pushed into this without the slow-dawning wonder sitting in Roger’s chest, realising that this is something he’s always wanted.

Then Andy lifts his head just far enough to say, desperation clear in the cored hollowness of his voice, ‘I don’t want to let go of you to walk to the locker room. I don’t- I don’t think I can. I’m sorry, you can kick me in the balls if you want to make a run for it,’ and the laugh that bursts from Roger is real because even high on sex flowers, even in this ridiculous situation, Andy has a way with blunt honesty like no one else. Andy pulls back to give him a glare that goes wide-eyed, amazed, when Roger admits, breathless;

‘I’m fine where I am, thanks.’

‘So can I-?’ Andy asks in a hush, the curl of his mouth still uncertain, and instead of answering Roger slides a hand behind his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. Not like walking away is an option for him either, every muscle gone weak with arousal and dizziness, and he’s deciding right now that if he’s going to ruin what’s left of his career with scandal then he’s going to let himself have something worth the fallout, first.

Takes Andy a second to get with the programme, mouth still and hesitant. Then he inhales sharply, realising Roger _means_ it and there’s a hot, wet tongue in his mouth a second later, weight over him shifting until Andy’s sitting on his thighs, knees bracketing Roger’s hips and a clumsy hand fumbling at the button of his jeans. Roger can’t comment with his mouth otherwise occupied but he ignores the thread of panic beneath the pleasure, the little voice whispering _stupid stupid_ , and hums approval into the kiss instead, arcing up off the dirt to give Andy better access. It’s not as if he’s ever cared – openly, anyway – what anyone said when he was chasing what he wanted, and people have been whispering about him in dark corners for over a decade; what does he care what anyone says this time. Frantically justifying this to himself so he doesn’t have to stop.

All that matters now are the soft sounds Andy’s gasping into his mouth, the slick of sweat pooling in the dip of Andy’s back when Roger gets a hand beneath his crumpled shirt, the skin beneath his fingers flushed as hot as Roger feels. Stalks of dried grass are sharp points of pain through his t-shirt, counterpoint to the sparks of bliss everywhere Andy touches, shocks lighting up every nerve and Roger digs his heels in to brace himself against the building heat, feeling his Nikes leave furrows in Centre’s hallowed ground.

Court pretty much ruined anyway and he distantly wonders if they’ll manage to fix the disaster of it this year, if he’ll still have to stand on this baseline to play tennis and remember Andy’s hand sliding into his jeans, the embarrassing sound he makes when Andy’s fingers brush his cock.

God, he’ll never make a first serve again. Maybe he should retire now and they can do this forever instead.

‘Don’t stop,’ he begs, voice shredded, into the kiss when Andy’s hand hesitates on sweat-damp underwear, Roger pushing up into it with a groan. Too far gone to care, world hazed around him with the breeze raising gooseflesh everywhere he’s not burning up beneath Andy’s touch and he couldn’t see far enough to if there was anyone watching in the stands now regardless. ‘Andy, I- I want. Don’t stop.’

‘It’s the fucking flowers, right?’ Andy whispers. He’s trembling all over, voice cracking over self-restraint. ‘Would you be telling me to keep going if we weren’t- you know, _here_? If these were _just_ flowers?’

‘Would _you_ still want to do this if they were?’ Roger asks, because he’s past the point of pretending this isn’t what he wants or maybe he’s just high enough from the flowers to be brave enough to pretend that’s the truth. Hoping desperately that maybe they can have this, even once, and skip the guilt that’s hovering just out of reach beyond the haze.

There’s an anxious, aching moment of silence before Andy leans back just enough for focus, to let Roger see the naked sincerity in his expression although he can’t hide the edge of panic either, admission coming out in a rush.

‘Roger, I’ve wanted to do this for years.’

_Years_. Too much to process with the drugged-up slowness limning every thought, arousal humming beneath every inch of skin, and so Roger compartmentalizes it down to the basics: _Andy wants this_ , _it’s okay._ Everything else can wait until he’s not Andy’s hand and a few short breaths away from coming so hard he forgets his own name. The art of the game plan; focus on the next point, the next serve, and save the intangibles for _later._

‘Then,’ he rasps, letting it rap out sharp with impatience, ‘believe I’m perfectly capable of kicking you in the balls if I stop being fine and _get on_ with it.’

Andy’s laughing again as he dips back down, gone loose with relief and the curve of his smile makes the kiss lopsided but Roger’s too busy gasping at the fumble of callused fingers to care, hips jerking helplessly at the rush of sensation as his underwear is pushed aside and he’s finally, _finally_ wrapped in Andy’s broad palm. Shivers racing all over, slide of Andy’s hand easy over hot, slick skin and Roger forces himself to keep his eyes open as arousal spirals up beneath their rushed, desperate movements because Andy’s flushed and wide-eyed and amazing, watching him like something miraculous.

Also, still in his damn suit pants which won’t do at all, and Roger makes a noise of complaint that he can’t quite shape into words in any language, shifting a thigh to press up and watching Andy’s eyes go unfocused, rhythm stuttering. Clearly beyond getting the point and it’s not as if they have time to take turns. Untangling a hand from sweat-damp cotton, Roger reaches down to tug impatiently at Andy’s belt – cheap tan leather that clashes terribly with his pants so Roger won’t exactly feel bad if he breaks the buckle.

‘Hey, hey ow.’ Andy squeezes a little too hard in retaliation though he’s grinning, broader with amusement when Roger twitches, glares. ‘You didn’t win exclusive rights to my dick in all those finals you know, you have to _ask_.’

Roger arches an eyebrow. ‘Or,’ he says, breathless enough to almost mask the impatience, ‘I could lie here and let you suffer?’

Leaning down, Andy drops a kiss on the bridge of his nose. He’s still laughing, breathing it out warm into the contact and Roger loses his grip on the spark of annoyance in a wave of something soft, bright as precious metal, trembling beneath the brush of Andy’s mouth.

‘Mmm,’ Andy murmurs, ‘point taken.’ Without lifting his head he takes his hand off Roger, ignoring the involuntary whimper that has Roger blushing, not that he has any dignity left to cede. Reaching down he starts to unbuckle his cheap belt, hands colliding when Roger interferes to pop the button, push suit fabric and underwear aside to curl his fingers over Andy, trembling against flushed-hot skin with anticipation and nerves. Long years since he touched any dick but his own, but it’s not as if the principle is any different, just the angle, and the deep groan from Andy when he’s freed from his underwear is all the approval he needs.

Being Andy though, he can’t resist a comment. ‘Pretty good at this, Feds,’ he gasps, eyes fluttering shut when Roger lets his nails bite just slightly, ‘maybe I should give you exclusive rights after all.’

Bucking up his hips because of _all the times_ to joke, honestly, Roger groans at the drag of skin on skin, hands that’ve won Slams and created miracle shots with a racquet gone clumsy and awkward with how fucking turned on he is. Arcing up he pants, grinding into the soft bare curve of Andy’s stomach now his shirt’s ridden up and all their clothes are on the fast track to being ruined anway.

God what are they _doing_. He’s been closer to totally naked on a tennis court than he is right now – they’re both still practically fully-clothed, except for where it counts - but this is compromising in an entirely new way, panic and pleasure riding the immolating burn of arousal together and he – they - shouldn’t be doing this, only he’s almost certain he can’t make himself stop. Confirmed when Andy shifts, settling his weight, and the brush of precome warm and wet against Roger’s thigh has a desperate sound clenched between his gritted teeth.

‘You won’t have anything left to need exclusive rights,’ he gasps out, suspects he’s missed _demanding_ and hit _petulance_ instead, ‘if you don’t put your hand back where it was _now_.’

‘Trust you to be a tyrant in bed,’ Andy mutters, and before Roger can point out if they were on a bed he wouldn’t have grass in his pants, Andy wraps a hand around both of them together, pollen-smeared fingers tangling with Roger’s over their shared arousal and the shout that rips from Roger’s throat echoes around the stands.

Hiking an eyebrow Andy attempts an unimpressed look, somewhat ruined by his rapid blinks in an attempt to focus. ‘Yell a little louder would you, I don’t think they heard you out on the practice courts.’

‘If you are not careful, I may change my mind,’ Roger says breathless, deadpan, just to watch the flicker of hesitation, the way Andy trembles all over in an attempt to grip his fragmenting self-control. ‘I mean, I can stay quiet fine if you’d like us to stop and go back to the interview, I’m sure we look great for the BBC like this-’

Gets cut off when Andy rolls his eyes and ducks down to shut him up with a kiss. It’s sloppy and too hard because they’re both unfocused with amusement and bliss that’s electric-sharp, Andy working their hands faster until Roger’s wound tight and on fire all over with it, thrusting up with helpless, choked-off sounds.

‘Can’t stand it when you’re a smart ass,’ Andy pants into his mouth, groaning when Roger’s teeth catch his lip in a deliberate bite. ‘Can’t resist. You’re all fucking butter-wouldn’t-melt polite, and then you crack a joke and jesus, it’s not fucking fair, it’s fucking _cheating_.’

Roger gasps, and moans, flexing his fingers to the point of pain because he’s so close, he _needs_ \- ‘Not cheating. Flowers.’

‘Newsflash, magic sex flowers count as cheating,’ Andy says and twists their hands together tight, perfect, and Roger arcs up and comes with a startled sound, loud around the empty stands. Breaking apart beneath Andy Roddick’s hands, cored open until he can’t deny this is something he’s wanted, always, even if he wouldn’t have planned it for _Centre Court at Wimbledon_. Panic edges the pleasure with a thrill as he spills with gasps choked out on every wave, hot and wet over their joined hands.

Riding the blissful dizzy high of it he distantly feels Andy tense and choke out a sound, wordless, coming hot and wet between them and soaking through Roger’s t-shirt. Andy jerks them both through the aftershocks until they’re trembling with it, until Roger whimpers at the back of his throat and they fumble into stillness.

Mouths still pressed together in nothing like a kiss, they share air for a while, too strung out to move and Roger’s half-afraid to shatter the fragile moment with reality, anyway.

After a minute though, an anxious thought creeps in with the haze lifting slightly; blinking rapidly, he manages to make his eyes focus. Still too close, Andy just a blur of dark lashes and the gold gleam of pollen, and Roger can’t see anything past him, not the stands or the court beyond the sun-lit brightness at the edges of his vision, the flutter of petals in the breeze.

‘Andy,’ he rasps into Andy’s mouth, tapping the American’s back with a hand that feels hopelessly uncoordinated post-orgasm, numb with the panic unfurling in his chest as common sense starts to kick in. ‘Andy, can you- have we got an audience?’

Andy goes tense, immediate and with a soft sound of terror buried between them. Roger swallows a moan, because they still have their hands wrapped together and Andy’s trembling too tight, still only half-soft and sensitive.

‘Shit,’ Andy whispers. ‘Shit, _shit_ , I can’t make myself look. Roger-’

'If there's anyone there, you know that not looking isn't going to make them go away?'

'Yeah but you know I’m a champion when it comes to denial,' Andy mutters. He shifts anyway, sliding his hands away to brace himself - Roger shivering at the loss - and leaning up just enough that he comes into focus. There's a flush sitting high across his cheeks, pupils wide in a thin ring of hazel and he looks- god, well-fucked, mouth red and a yellow smear of pollen at one corner, mapping the path of a clumsy kiss. They're so close that Roger can count the individual sweep of his eyelashes, catch the way his mouth quivers over something unsaid, the uncertainty he usually masks with humour flickering through the cracks. Closer than they've been for years, tense and breathlessly still like Andy's waiting for this to be yanked out from under him and Roger can't stop the smile that breaks across his face, helpless, in spite of everything.

'Andy,' he says, doesn't know where he's going with it other than he wants to curl his tongue around the name with affection for once. No one to hear it whispered between them for this one time, no journalists to scrawl it across headlines. 'It's okay.'

Startled, Andy blinks - and suddenly the uncertainty eases to be replaced by an echo of his crooked smile, like sun chasing out between the clouds.

'It won't be if the BBC film crew are behind us right now,’ he says, wryly amused, ‘not that you need to worry. They're hardly going to ban Roger Federer from Wimbledon.'

Casting a glance down at his come-splattered shirt, gaze drifting to where they’re pressed together, Roger ignores a jolt of heat to raise an eyebrow instead. ‘Would you like to bet on that?’

‘Nope. I don’t trust my luck when you’re involved,’ Andy says, something complicated flickering across his face. Before Roger can pin it down it’s gone, Andy taking a deep breath. ‘Okay, okay brace yourself. I’m looking.’

‘So? Is it bad?’ Roger forces himself to ask after a few seconds, heart in his throat because Andy’s just staring around them in silence.

'There's no one.' Andy sounds halfway to incredulous, searching the stands as if the entire Wimbledon staff might leap up from hiding to yell ‘ _surprise!’_. 'That’s got to be impossible. It's Wimbledon; we can't have got away with it. You think they're waiting on a SWAT team to take us out?'

'Or maybe-' With a sudden rush of horror, Roger cuts himself off. 'Never mind. We should move-'

Andy looks down at him, eyes wide. 'You don't think-'

' _No_ ,' Roger snaps out. 'I am very carefully not thinking about-'

He can't say _everyone else in Wimbledon fucking_ because he theoretically has to play tennis here again one day without being crippled by embarrassment, so he goes with, _'it._ We should stop talking about _it._ And I would like to get off this court before everyone is talking about us instead so if you could move, _please_.'

Instantly Andy's expression goes strained and Roger feels guilty for a second, that’s he’s so thoroughly ruined the moment. Their magic sex flower moment. Because that’s all this was, declarations of past feeling aside; like someone spiked their drinks, like that time Marat put 88% proof vodka in the locker room drinking fountain and they all had to agree afterward to never speak of it again. They forgot all the reasons they couldn’t have it and now they’ve done it and all that’s left is to move on with the shreds of dignity they have left.

'Right,’ Andy says, ‘sorry. I-sorry.'

He starts to slide back, away. Roger has all of a second to register that the restless, coiling heat in his stomach isn't guilt at all before Andy groans, high and desperate, and every muscle in Roger’s body goes tight because _god_ that sensation shot straight to his cock.

_'Shit_ ,' Andy rasps, dropping his head to Roger's shoulder as his back arches, whimper gritted out between his teeth at the tension snapping him taut. 'Roger, I- think we have a problem.'

_You think_ , Roger wants to deadpan back but the words go thick in his mouth, dizzy edge of sweetness on his tongue and he digs his fingers into the ground, claws a grip into the dry dust of Centre Court as if anchoring himself from touching Andy will change the fact he’s already most of the way back to hard. Arousal muting all the ache of bruises, building to a swell of heat that has him reweighing the pros and cons of pushing up into solid weight and friction of Andy above him, without giving a toss for anyone watching. Desperate as if he’s never been touched, never mind he’d come not two minutes ago and the way Andy’s gasping curses against his collarbone suggests it’s mutual.

So much for moving on with dignity intact. Clearly weird sex pollen overrides everyday issues like refractory periods, or maybe it’s just because they’re both coated in it now, sweetness and dust in every breath and want like thirst, like a driving urge that’ll never ease until he’s coming over and over in Andy’s callused hands. Maybe they’ll be stuck here forever, fucking themselves to exhaustion, or until someone bulldozes the flowers, or until it rains.

_Rains.  
_

‘Andy,’ Roger says as he grasps the thread of an idea, pushing at Andy’s shoulder. His hand is filthy from the dust, smudged with Wimbledon’s finest dirt and there’s dead grass beneath his nails. He blinks at it in distraction for a second, the splay of his own palm over the warmth of Andy through rumpled cotton - before Andy mouths a wet kiss through his t-shirt and he jolts back to clarity.

‘ _Andy_ ,’ he says again, louder. ‘We should shower.’

Andy hums an approving sound without lifting his head. ‘Together?’

‘Ye- _no_. To get rid of the _pollen_.’ Sinking his teeth into his lower lip, Roger grounds himself on the pain enough to shove Andy with actual force, ignoring the searing ache of loss as the American jerks back, almost falls in putting space between them. Eyes wide and there’s panic in the slack line of his mouth as he kneels in the dust, staring at Roger. Shoulders curling in on himself as he shakes with the effort of holding still and away.

‘It’s fine,’ Roger says, desperate, before the panic in Andy’s face can become guilt, become the hollow devastation of ’09 that still haunts him when he forgets he’s not allowed to care. ‘I’m not saying no, Andy. But it’s clearly not going away by itself, and this is crazy, doing this on court.’

‘I get it, staying out here is dumb.’

For all that it’s agreement, there’s tension clear in the lines of Andy’s frown, in the way he avoids meeting Roger’s eyes as he shuffles his weight, presses his palms flat to the court. Sweat is soaking his shirt dark, rumpled material doing nothing to hide the flushed curve of his cock and Roger swallows. His own self-control is fast disintegrating and he doesn’t know what to say; words have always been Andy’s specialty, the right joke for every situation, but Andy’s panting around a pained sound and clearly too far gone to fix this, so it’s up to Roger to get them to the locker room without ending up splashed across the newspapers tomorrow.

In lieu of the right words, all he has is honesty.

‘Andy,’ he says, hoarse edge to it, catching the there-and-gone flick of Andy’s eyes toward him. ‘Whatever’s happening, we can’t stop, but if we stay out here someone is going to interrupt us.’ He pushes himself up to his knees with a hiss as his cock brushes his thigh, thrill of sensation that he ignores in favour of reaching out to press his hand over Andy’s, flat against the court. That gets him a flash of surprise, Andy’s eyebrows quirking. ‘I don’t want to be interrupted. Okay?’

Beat of silence where Andy stares at him, swallowing convulsively. Then he turns his hand up, lacing their fingers together tight and something warm splashes out in Roger’s chest, softer than arousal at the dawning half-smile on Andy’s face, the edge of bewildered amazement behind it.

‘That,’ Andy says, ‘sounds like a game plan I can get behind.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "‘Roger,’ Mirka says, cheerfully cruel in her lack of sympathy, ‘have you paid any attention at all to the ATP tour? It is exactly like high school. I think most of you skipped important developmental stages because you were playing tennis in the years you should have learned how to be adults.’"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned a neat trick in January; say you're going to try for weekly updates on a fic and you'll get month-long bronchitis! I heartily do not recommend it. F- service, would not shop viruses here again. And then when I remembered how to breathe, this ended up twice as long as I anticipated and refused to be finished until now. 
> 
> So- boo to the wait, yay for more chapter?
> 
> (Sorry.)

* * *

 

**_Friday (1 st week, p.m.) _ **

****

****

The evening sun is shading to dusky gold shadows as Roger unlocks the door to their rented house, fumbling the unfamiliar key in exhaustion. The BBC caught him after lunch for impromptu analysis, on Rafa’s early exit and what it means for tennis, the universe, and the price of tea in China. His good will toward them for hiring Andy kept him there far past the point of boredom but only the way Tim met his eyes with a badly-masked grin every time Inverdale opened his mouth kept Roger from napping in his furnished-by-the-lowest-bidder chair.

As if he has anything media-permissible and new to say that the press haven’t already poured over before, honestly.

He did manage to catch Sue after the cameras were turned off, to ask ‘Andy, did you know he delayed-?’ She’d sighed and admitted that yes he’d called her.

‘I understand it’s bad timing and he doesn’t want to leave Brooklyn,’ she said, tucked into a corner of the BBC studio with Roger’s own face staring at him disconcertingly large from the screen over her shoulder, ‘but I pushed hard for the BBC to make this offer, to make it worth his while. He’s exactly the kind of commentator we need to avoid going stale.’

Her mouth pursed with the brand of concerned affection Roger’s noticed she reserves particularly for Andy, her fondness never quite hidden by practiced professionalism. ‘I hope he didn’t felt pressured into it.’

All of which was news to Roger. At least he’d been able to reassure her, with total honesty, that Andy Roddick didn’t do anything he didn’t want to.

Like text Roger a brief nothing-excuse, while Sue Barker got a call and an explanation. Over a decade of practicing his media façade meant his smile hadn’t so much as flickered and he’s _not a child_ so he’s not going to call the bitterness souring his mood _sulking._ Justified disappointment, perhaps- or no, he’s not even giving Andy that, because it shouldn’t _matter,_ he has no right to expect anything special. This is just it, where they stand with each other.

Andy probably didn’t want to spend the extra few days getting asked about their last Wimbledon final, being reminded of another glittering dream that Roger snatched from him. That’s the special hell of tennis after all; you survive the worst day of your entire life and everyone in the world spends the rest of it asking _so how did that make you feel?_

The house is suspiciously quiet as he drops his bags by the door but he finds Mirka alone in the kitchen. She’s slumped over a cup of coffee at the table, limned in the golden haze pouring in through the wide windows but her immaculate-coiffed appearance from when he’d waved her off that morning is distinctly frayed at the edges. When he touches her arm she lifts her head to accept his kiss but doesn’t move, exhaustion in the hunched line of her shoulders.

‘How was the museum?’ Roger asks, tentative because the obvious answer would appear to be _destroyed by five-year olds._ He’s not exactly poor these days, but he’s not sure he can afford to replace an entire Natural History museum if the British government send him the bill.

He _is_ pretty sure Harrods’ personal shopper service doesn’t extend to dinosaur bones. Maybe he can buy fakes on eBay and hope no one notices.

Mirka sighs, waving a desultory hand that implies she’d be setting fire to London and salting the ashes right now if only she had the energy.

‘Oh it was _fine_ , you know,’ she says in the archly dismissive tone she uses on journalists who still try to trick her into interviews. ‘Charlene decided that she wanted to ride the animatronic dinosaurs so she sent Myla to distract the guard while she climbed the barrier. Next thing, another kid starts screaming because he thought she was about to get eaten by the T-Rex. Which started all the _other_ kids screaming and, since kids think dinosaurs are ‘the coolest’ right now as I was informed by the very politely angry guards as they escorted us out, most of the children in London were in that dark, hot room, all screaming together. It was like being stabbed in both ears with sharpened pencils. Repeatedly. Your daughters refused to apologise to them or the guards because, ‘it was plastic, they should be less stupid’. _And,’_ she jabs an emphatic finger on the table top, as if she can eviscerate her annoyance with a manicured nail, ‘when I asked where they learned to use each other to run interference, Charlene said – these _exact_ words – that she was _deploying resources._ ’

She must catch his mouth twitching – though he’s only got away with it this long because she was too tired to notice until he was only a breath away from full-out laughter - because she flicks the hand up to point accusingly at his grin.

‘No, _no_ ,’ she says, and it really would be more threatening if she wasn’t half-asleep in her seat, knocking her cup so coffee slops across the table, ‘laugh and next time you get to take them all by yourself. They are _five,_ Roger! They shouldn’t be practicing the art of war!’

Crossing the room to fetch a water bottle from the ‘fridge gives Roger time to swallow his smile before returns to sit next to her, bumping their shoulders together gently.‘They’re your children,’ he points out, ignoring her huff that says she doesn’t want to be reminded. ‘Which means they take after you in being smarter than anyone else in the room.’

Pausing a moment before taking a drink, he reflects, ‘Of course, it is unfortunate that they are choosing to use that power for evil. I can’t imagine where they got that from.’

‘Probably Andy Roddick,’ Mirka says bitterly and Roger inhales his mouthful of water.

‘What?’ he splutters when he can breathe again, Mirka regarding him with the speculative frown that says she’s cataloguing this reaction for future reference and potential blackmail. ‘Andy hasn’t talked to them, not for months. Years?’ he adds, suddenly uncertain in the face of Mirka's frown.

‘He was talking to them this morning,’ she says, using the tone he’s always classed as her _come on Roger, keep up_ brand of irritated; it’s only after a few seconds of his best blank look that realisation lifts her expression. ‘Ah no, sorry! I forgot to tell you because you were rushing for practice. They answered your phone while you were in the shower, and I think they kept him for a while, because Myla was insisting he ‘ _promise’_ something when I caught them. I asked what when I took the phone, but he just laughed and said ‘a gentleman never reveals a lady’s secrets’.’

Something complex flits across her expression, as if she’s trying to be fond and exasperated together. ‘I hope he is not buying them ponies. I don’t think they’d fit in a suitcase.’

‘Wait,’ Roger says. There’s a flutter of something in his stomach, nerves or relief, clawing up to try to quiver in his tone. ‘Andy called?’

The speculation in Mirka’s eyes sharpens, gaze pinning him in place and oh, maybe his voice had slipped too far into hope on Andy’s name. A decade of practice and he’s never been able to fool his wife when she looks at him like that so he sighs defeat instead of evasion, hitching a shoulder defensively.

‘Don’t – it’s nothing. He messaged me today, that’s all. He must have thought I forgot to call him back.’

‘Did he say what he wanted? What time his flight gets in?’

Now it’s Roger’s turn to stare at her, searching, because it’s been so many years of Mirka always being one step ahead, all the information catalogued and to hand, that he’s not used to her _not knowing_ before him. He can’t quite pinpoint why it’s so unsettling, that Andy wouldn’t pass the message to her for him.

Would actively avoid explanations, in truth, because he _knows_ Andy and the he doesn’t tease Mirka unless it’s a deflection. The American confessed once, trapped together in a humid Cincinnati locker room during a day-long rain delay, both half-crazy with cabin fever, that he’s convinced she has ruthless Swiss assassins on speed dial and he’s too afraid to piss her off.

Roger’s pretty sure he’s just overreacting. Mirka goes stiffly polite to people she doesn’t like, bare minimum of civility expended, but she smiles at Andy these days.

The assassins, well. Occasionally even Roger wonders.

‘He didn’t say?’ he asks, and Mirka’s frown becomes a breath hissed through her teeth in exasperation.

‘ _Roger_.’

Rocked back in his chair Roger has his hands half-up in defence before he realises, makes a concerted effort to relax his shoulders from their hunch because it _doesn’t matter,_ so why is he suddenly restless with irritation, sharp like sandpaper beneath his skin?

' _What_?!’ he asks and makes an effort to keep it light, suspects he fails when Mirka’s expression darkens. ‘He changed his flight to Tuesday, that’s all. It’s not a problem.’

‘Oh.’ It’s breathed out, the abrupt edge of sympathy in it stinging Roger’s pride. Mirka must see his mouth curl down because she sighs and reaches out to rest a hand on his wrist. Her rings are oddly-grounding points of coldness against his skin. ‘Are you okay?’

Heat flares, abrupt fist of it to the solar plexus and it knocks his voice out loud enough to echo back the walls.

 _‘_ Why _wouldn’t I be?!’_ he snaps, and only realises he is in fact snapping when Mirka jerks sharply back in her chair, eyes gone wide and startled in the fading light.

Heart hammering on the sudden flush of- anger? Frustration? Impossible to tell, something hot fizzing like a firework in his chest, Roger swallows against the rasp in his throat from the shout. Forcing his breathing slow and careful takes an effort but he concentrates, pressing his palms flat to the table as if he can pretend his hands weren’t inexplicably clenched.

‘Sorry,’ he says after a beat, staring at his own fingers. They’re trembling faintly, deceptively fragile, and pale against the dark wood, marred with calluses and a bruise on his wrist where he’d caught it against the wall earlier. Guilt is beginning to well up beneath the fading heat, whatever formless annoyance he’s been carrying all day dissipated in the outburst until he can begin to appreciate the magnitude of his overreaction. ‘I-I don’t think I’m myself today?’

Shades upward to a question at the end, plaintive, because she’s the one person who is always on his side and sure they fight, scream with the best of them on the rare occasion they have the space away from journalists and coaches and the children to unleash all the tiny annoyances they tamp down every day, everything they can’t say when they risk making an exhibition of themselves in a way Roger flat out refuses to allow. _Everyone_ fights, but they always need a _reason_ , Mirka never just a convenient target when he’s having a bad day.

Not that he is, he thinks, not really - tiring, disappointing, but nothing to account for the prickling of something hot beneath his skin, like the blush from the corridor this morning never faded. Perhaps he’s been out in the sun too long.

The thought is echoed by Mirka a moment later, one of those eerie times when she knows him better than he does himself. After over a decade he suspects it’s an unconscious knack she’s picked up, working to translate all the idiosyncrasies of him into a bigger picture he can internalise and peddle out to the media as sanitised snippets of insight.

‘It’s been very hot,’ she says, neutral in a way that says she’s giving him an out, sidestepping the argument, ‘for Wimbledon that is, they aren’t designed for it here so much. It’s getting to everyone.’

So reasonable, so carefully timed to calm him down and it stings again, mild enough that he can squash the annoyance down before it flares. Almost feels like he’d rather the fight to work out the restlessness but she’s probably right; it’s just the heat, driving them all to outbursts and the British media stoking the fire with endless questions. She’s playing it smart, retreating to the role she plays best within the Federer entourage: _managing the talent_.

Thought lightning-fast and bitter, and he’s immediately ashamed at his own ingratitude. They’ve been a team for so long and she deserves at least half those seventeen Slam trophies, because he wouldn’t have them without her.

It’s just that occasionally, in dark all-blend-together-hotel-rooms when he can’t sleep, when she’s been bitingly short about him signing up to another tournament he’d planned to skip, he lets himself worry that they only love each other out of habit now, because they’ve forgotten how to live any other way.

‘Sorry,’ he says again. He isn’t sure if he’s apologising for the outburst of before or his own train of thought. “Guess I’ll have to stop telling off journalists for saying it’s too hot now, you think?’

Mirka makes a dismissive sound through her teeth. ‘ _Pssht._ They’re all idiots, crying that the sky is falling for the sake of acorns. Tell them anything you want.’ In the pause, he can feel the intent in her stare, studying the side of his expression, what he can knows is an unhappy crease of frown that he can’t quite persuade to lift.

Whatever she starts to say dies before it becomes anything more than a soft exhale, not quite a sound, and when she reaches out again he turns his hand palm-up, letting her tangle their fingers together pale and tan, the slender curves of her he knows as well as his own. Maybe he is sunburnt after all because she feels cool against the flush of his skin, thumb tracing light, meaningless circles along his wrist.

‘I don’t know why I’m upset about Andy,’ he says, offering it up like a peace gesture in return for avoiding the fight and slanting her a sideways look, taking comfort in her rock-steady calm. ‘It was just a practice. If something came up, he had no reason to rush out here.’

Mirka squeezes his hand. When he steals another glance, there’s the faint suggestion of sympathy in the purse of her lips and something tight in his chest eases.

‘A friend is a reason, isn’t it? A _good_ friend?’ she adds, and there’s something in her inflection that has Roger hesitating.

‘We’re not _good_ friends, really,’ he says, slow as he mulls it over, uncertain. They haven’t seen each other in so long, always busy now and for all the jokes in the world there’s always the distance of heartache between them, Roger’s every word laden with the weight of a potential misstep. Caution is ingrained even in his sleep now but accidental insults to journalists and other players, slipping out in the frustrated cracks when he loses, are nothing but a blaze of headlines and just as fast they fade away, into the general background hum of half-forgotten grudges that grease the tour along. None of that matters but with Andy, all words count. They’re all Roger has to set against Andy’s eyes glittering under the studio lights when he talked about Wimbledon, the flash of humour that’s all for show, self-deprecation a defence that’s become a habit.

Against the memory of solid weight and the damp press of skin, the long golden shadows across screaming crowds and Andy, Andy leaning in too fast so they almost collided into the hug, trembling with exhaustion and heartbreak beneath Roger’s hands.

He’s not confident that, if asked, Andy would call them _good_ friends.

‘I think perhaps,’ he says, exhaustion a sudden weight pressing him into his chair, ‘now we’re the kind of friends who cancel practices on each other.’

‘But you-’Mirka starts, cuts herself off to shift away, up, taking her frown with her over to the sink to wash out her mug. Unsure exactly where he’s blundered, Roger watches her sharp, agitated motions, the stiff line of her shoulders as she flicks off the tap and pauses to stare out at the garden, the edges of her hair limned in rose-gold from the dying sunset.

‘You have to understand,’ she says without turning around, ‘I only want you to be happy? You have to know you could tell me anything and that I would not be angry. Not if it was Andy, yes?

The serrated edge of a quiver to her voice suggests otherwise but Roger’s at a loss, no idea which answer is the safe approach. Does she mean she wouldn’t mind if he practiced with Andy? If they _were_ good friends? After the silence drags on a minute, he sees her hunch in on herself and that hurts, that he’s failed somehow to live up to an expectation he can’t even quantify _._

Aiming to keep his voice neutral he misses spectacularly, tipping headfirst into forlorn with, ‘I don’t understand.’

Still braced against the sink, Mirka glances over her shoulder. With her expression in shadow it’s impossible to read, but whatever she sees in his must read true because she’s turning, leaning back against the counter with the tension softening and she sounds almost confused as he feels, now.

‘But- but the way you look at him, Roger. You watch him like he hung the stars, even when he’s being an idiot. _Especially_ when he’s being an idiot. He makes you laugh and I thought-’

Her eyes catch the light as she squints at him, glittering in the shadows and he wishes he could see her properly so he could work out if she’s _really_ implying what he thinks she might be, wondering if he’s been so obvious that he looks at Andy noticeably different to everyone else. He’s always been fond of the American sure, but he’d kept a tight rein on it or so he’d thought until that message in practice today, working hard to never show affection unfairly when he had to play these people, destroy their dreams on a weekly basis. If he lets a flicker of sympathy creep in on court, he’s done.

And if something soft flutters in his chest when he sees Andy, every first sight like enfolding himself in the warmth of a comfort blanket, he’s worked to brush aside the affection as nothing more than familiarity. When life is faceless hotels and endless airports, the face across the net from you becomes home. Andy was the face across the net so long that Roger’s felt vaguely adrift since he retired - so maybe he _is_ a little happier to see Andy when he is around is all, smiling a little more freely, feeling a little more secure with the world the way it’s supposed to be. It’s why he was looking forward to Andy being here this week after all.

It doesn’t quite sound like a lie but he wonders if, with repetition, even lies become worn into something like truth.

‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?’ It’s sighed out almost rueful, Mirka crossing the room to drop heavily back into her chair and leaning an elbow on the table to prop up her chin as she regards him. ‘All this time I wondered and I could’ve just asked.’

‘I’m still not clear on what you asked this time,’ Roger says, careful, and Mirka laughs with her head, her tangled hair, thrown back, sound warm and beautiful as it echoes back from the room, from the tiles gleaming in the last of the sun.

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Apparently,’ and Roger lets himself grin finally, feeling it curl up wickedly at the corners.

‘Good,’ he answers. Keeping his face perfectly serious, adds, ‘because for a second there it sounded like you thought I was having an affair with Andy Roddick.’

Caught mid-amusement, Mirka stares at him wide-eyed and mouth open on something aborted, words snagged back half-formed.

‘Bu- you- _Roger,’_ she hisses after an endless moment and hits his shoulder as he cracks up into laughter, her glare outraged but crinkling into relief at the corners of her eyes. ‘ _Asshole._ It was a perfectly reasonable assumption!’

Still laughing, breathless with it, Roger raises his eyebrows at her. ‘And exactly when, between winning seventeen Slams, having four children, and still getting into bed next to you almost every night for the last oh, fourteen years, was I supposed to be-’

He almost says _fucking_ and stumbles because it feels too visceral for the joke, something suddenly shivering through him at combining it with _Andy_.

‘To be sleeping with Andy?’ he amends. ‘On Centre Court at Wimbledon?’

‘Of course not. I’m almost certain they’ll have a rule against that and that’s one lifetime ban you can appeal on your own.’ With a sigh, Mirka rubs a hand across her eyes without a care for the remnants of her mascara, already worn into shadows beneath her eyes. ‘God, Roger. Why are you upset about Andy, then? Because you are,’ she adds, catching the immediate refusal before it moves beyond a thought. ‘Regardless of whether you want to sleep with him, which by the way I think I deserve points for being completely fine with regardless of my failure in deductive reasoning, then he is _allowed_ to cancel. He even tried to call.’

‘I know.’ Exhaustion comes creeping back in as the laughter fades, reminding him that he’s had a long day and there’s a match to be won tomorrow without the immediate promise of Andy if he wins. ‘That helps, I guess. It’s nothing, just the heat getting to me. Can we forget I overreacted?’

Mirka regards him levelly. ‘You know,’ she offers after a moment, with a hopeful spark beneath the calm, ‘I could call Brooklyn and find out what the real reasons were?’

Dropping his face into his hands, Roger groans.

‘No. _No,’_ he says, muffled by his own palms until he turns his head to slant her a sideways glare that he hopes looks less pathetic than it feels. ‘Andy will find out and laugh at me, no. This isn’t high school, Mirka. You’re not trying to find out if a boy is going to ask me to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.’

‘Roger,’ she says, cheerfully cruel in her lack of sympathy, ‘have you paid any attention at all to the ATP tour? It is _exactly_ like high school. I think most of you skipped important developmental stages because you were playing tennis in the years you should have learned how to be adults.’

Roger almost offers a token protest but, considering Mirka was an unfortunate casualty of the six-month vengeance campaign between the Russians and the Americans after the 2007 Davis Cup, he suspects he might be picking the losing side.

In his defence, he’d had no idea the practice balls he borrowed from the chaos outside Andy’s locker had been filled with purple dye. And Marat _had_ replaced Mirka’s cream Chanel jacket with profuse apologies, even if he couldn’t do anything about the week - most of which she’d spent glaring at Roger behind closed doors - that it took the blotches to fade from her face.

Still. He does, grudgingly, concede her point.

‘Andy will be here on Tuesday,’ he temporises, ‘So I can ask him then. This was last minute, perhaps something’s happened that he doesn’t want to talk about over the phone. Perhaps something is up with Brooklyn. Better not push when he’s just getting to like you.’

Mirka gives him the look she reserves for moments when she loves him despite the fact that she’s doubting his sanity. As always it makes him feel about five years old. ‘I don’t think Andy will ever like me, Roger. We’ve established common ground, that’s all.’

Before he can ask _what,_ because he didn’t think his wife had talked to Andy often enough in the last decade to establish anything more than surface pleasantries, she’s pushing to her feet with a groan. ‘I should check on the boys. Your parents took everyone else out to dinner to give us some peace but you know Leo’s not been sleeping the last few nights again so we left them to nap while they could.’

‘I’ll come,’ Roger says halfway out his chair already. He tries so hard to never be _too tired_ for the kids and Lenny quiets for him like no one else, tucking his damp face into the curve of Roger’s shoulder with a forlorn snuffle while Leo screams them all awake at 3am.

He’d tried to describe it to Andy once after that panicked text _oh god, Brooke’s pregnant, tell me everything you know about winning at this_ and there’d been a long silence, Roger almost fallen back to sleep in the faceless hotel of the week before his phone lit up with a reply that read only _ty._

‘No,’ Mirka says, abrupt. Roger doesn’t have a breath to be hurt before she gestures to his dusty t-shirt, fresh after practice but the heat is baking Wimbledon dry and it’s raising dust with every drift of breeze. ‘Shower first. They were saying the pollen count was high today, and I think Leo may be allergic to grass.’

Subsiding back to his chair, Roger acquiesces with a shrug. ‘Okay.’ He pauses to mull over what she said with a flicker of loss, as always, for all the things he misses on a daily basis about his children in the endless whirl of tennis and interviews and practice. ‘To grass? You think?’

‘Yes. He snuffled terribly when I brought them for lunch yesterday but it could not be so bad.’ Mirka pauses in the doorway to glance back. ‘Maybe he will grow out of it.’

Roger shrugs. ‘Even if not, it’s not the end of the world if it’s just grass,’ he says and, straight-faced, adds, ‘he can always beat Rafa’s clay records instead.’

Mirka’s exasperated _Roger we don’t joke about making them play tennis, honestly,_ follows him all the way to his shower, keeping him grinning as he flicks on the water, sheds his clothes.

It’s distracting enough that when he retrieves his phone from his jeans before he drops them in the laundry, the temptation to call Andy stays nothing more than a brief hesitation before he tosses it in the general direction of the bed and goes to find fresh clothes. Everything he said to Mirka was true, honestly; if he wins his matches, he’ll reward himself by asking Andy on Tuesday.

Only much later, lying on his back in the darkness and listening to the sleeping Mirka breathe soft and regular across the indulgently-large bed, does he have a startled realisation; when did just talking to Andy became _a reward_ rather than an everyday commonplace? Became something he seeks out, that ignites excitement like a spark to a match when he hears the lazy affection every time Andy says his name? And if it’s because he misses the American then it shouldn’t matter so much more than with everyone else he misses now they’ve retired, something bewilderingly sharp to the thought of _Andy_ that’s just vague with Marat, with Yves and all the others _._

He’s so busy worrying about this dependence he seems to have developed without any input from his common sense that his flare of temper, inexplicable and unwarranted, gets pushed to the edge of forgetfulness. After all, it was probably just the sun.

* * *

 

**_Tuesday (2 nd week, a.m.)_ **

 

Dropping into one of the rickety chairs Wimbledon leaves out on the practice courts, Roger grimaces at the cloud of dust that puffs up from the overstretched fabric. The weather’s cooled from the unbearable burning sunshine of the first week, but in practice all that means is the dry heat has sunk into London’s default setting of oppressive humidity. The brief rain shower that postponed play yesterday seems, if possible, to have made it worse; the air tastes thick with damp and dust, filming everything in a layer of grime beneath the sullen cloud haze that promises thunder. Roger’s barely walked out on the court and he’s already bargaining with himself how many missed shots will drive him to call the entire practice off as a lost cause. He can’t help feeling he’d be achieving more playing swingball at home with Myla and Charlene.

And they’re as likely to hit _him_ with the racquet as they are the ball.

‘What’s eating you today?’ Seve’s caught up with him while Roger stared bitterly up at sky the colour of dirty concrete. He’s dragging along the bag of racquets and practice balls that Roger accidentally-on-purpose forgot in the locker room, because even at thirty-three he’s not above a stealth campaign to skip practice when he feels this unsettled (particularly when Mirka stayed at home and can’t call him on it.)

Forgoing the spare chair, Seve folds down on the dust-brown grass beside Roger, dropping the bag with a clatter of racquets. ‘You have a face as angry as those thunder clouds,’ he says. ‘The rampaging hordes watching are going to be crying all over Twitter that you hate Wimbledon you know.’

Automatically, Roger glances up at the end of the court where fans are pressed up against the fences; it earns him a light show of camera flashes and he waves to cover his flinch. He’d booked to practice on one of the back courts – he tries to give the fans at least one practice on view a week but he still feels uncoordinated, itching beneath his skin and he’d gone with ‘hiding’ as the option most likely to leave him with any dignity if he fails to even hit the ball.

Unfortunately he’d paused at the practice sheets on the way out and had to read it three times before he let himself be angry. The first official he called over with a sharp gesture babbled profuse apologies at the scribble through _Federer – court 22_ , explaining there’d been damage to the back court overnight, something unintelligible about grass samples. The only court they’d had left free for the rest of the afternoon was at the front, he’d explained, unless Roger would like them to ask someone to swap? Knowing full well Roger wouldn’t disrupt another player that way because it’d be a dick move and with everyone so cranky, dick moves are practically an open invitation to fill his locker full of everyone’s dirty socks.

With a sigh Roger’d shrugged the entire thing off as unavoidable until he walked out on court, saw the sheer size of the crowd pressed up against the fences, and wondered if he’d been played for a sucker. At least the Wimbledon practice courts have fences and enough space to move without feeling he’s about to tip headfirst into the audience, but it does mean he’s going to have to concentrate on hitting actual shots instead of hammering serves against the fence. The last thing he needs is it all over the press that Roger Federer is having a mid-life crisis.

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he tells Seve, because he can’t say he’s dedicating more than half his attention to wondering if Serena, currently warming up for her match on the next court, knows when Andy’s flight gets in and how he might work it into conversation. After first working out how to safely start a conversation even from here he can see Serena’s got that look on her face that says she’s intent on homicide-by-tennis-ball and anyone who interrupts her better know how to duck. ‘It’s the dust, that’s all. I wish it’d rain; I’d rather play in mud.’

Seve squints up at him, grinning. ‘All those journalists that you snapped at last week about it being ‘not that hot’ would wet themselves for that soundbite.’

‘I _didn’t snap_ ,’ Roger snaps, and bites his tongue. ‘Sorry. I don’t know what’s up with me lately.’

‘Think about getting through your match yesterday and Novak having to finish his today while you sulk on the practice courts,’ Seve says, unruffled. ‘I’m your coach and this is my advice so you should listen.’

Roger gives him a glare, only half-serious. ‘What, gloat? That’s your advice? That’s _terrible_. You’re fired.’

‘ _Find the positives_ is my advice and that’s fine, I’m sure I can shamelessly exploit my work experience with coaching the greatest ever petulant tennis player who never listens to find an easier coaching job. I’m sure Kyrgios would be interested.’

Blowing the last flicker of his annoyance out as a sigh, Roger grins at the thought of his easy-going coach attempting to wrangle the Australian into practice. Into even _listening_. ‘Nick would eat you for breakfast.’

‘Ye of little faith,’ Seve says, laughing as he steals the water bottle Roger dropped beside his chair and pops the cap, ‘you should have more respect for your wise old coach you know.’

Watching Seve splash water over his hands and using them to wipe the dust from his face, succeeding only in smearing it into camouflage-like streaks, Roger hums an amused sound. ‘Why? If my only competition is Nick, I don’t exactly have to worry.’

‘Oh,’ Stefan says from behind them, unexpected. ‘Did you already hear about Nick? I was just coming to tell you.’

He sounds as disappointed as much as he ever lets his level calm be ruffled, thin lines of frown lurking behind his impassive expression when Roger twists to look at him in surprise. There’s a few shouts of welcome from the crowds which the Swede acknowledges with an absentminded wave, walking around the chairs.

Roger frowns at him, a sinking feeling in his stomach. If Stefan thought gossip was worth trekking out to find them when Roger had asked him to scout out the end of Novak’s match, it must be impressive or appalling, or based on how the rest of the tournament has gone so far, most likely both.

‘Nick’s done something else?’ he asks. ‘I thought he’d left already.’

‘Apparently there was a meeting about that disaster of a match yesterday.’ Taking the empty seat beside Roger, Stefan reclines back as if both Roger and Seve aren’t staring at him with visible impatience. ‘You really have not heard?’

‘You’d better tell us, Stefan,’ Seve advises, ‘he’s already fired me this morning. If you try his patience any more, Wimbledon might not be standing by tonight.’ He ducks, laughing, when Roger tries to steal the water bottle to upend over his head in retaliation, dust drifting up around them as he tries to wriggle away over the sunburned grass.

After a minute Roger subsides back into his chair with a wave of his hand to call truce; there’s easier ways for payback. And his curiosity is still sharp, wanting to know what Nick’s done _now_ because it’s got to be pretty spectacular to overturn that match yesterday as scandal of the tournament. He raises his eyebrows at Stefan expectantly.

Stefan’s regarding their antics with the affectionate tolerance that Roger’s inordinately fond of, mostly because he suspects it’s how _he_ looks at any player under the age of thirty these days. ‘If you’re quite done, I will tell you that there was a meeting and Wimbledon brought in Nick and Gasquet, and Mo Lahyani, to discuss possible repercussions. They have to be seen to be acting I suppose.’

‘That’s Wimbledon, ticking all the boxes,’ Seve says drily as he resettles himself beside the chairs. He’d been more annoyed that Roger at the subtle reprimand about those orange shoes and generally takes a zero tolerance approach to Wimbledon’s posturing, even if only quietly at the sidelines. Roger gives him a quelling look; they’d already had this conversation-slash-argument-slash-Mirka-finally-telling-them-if-they-woke-the-kids-one-more-time-they-were-both-sleeping-in-the-garden-so-help-me-god, last night.

‘They couldn’t let it slide. What Nick said was unacceptable.’

Seve snorts. ‘But Richard going after him with his racquet was justified?’

‘He could probably justify it as self-defence now,’ Stefan remarks laconically, ‘considering Nick just punched Lahyani in the face.’

That earns a pin-drop silence. Even the _thwack_ of tennis balls from the other courts seems suddenly muted by shock as they absorb that he's not joking. It takes Roger a second too long to react, processing and reprocessing the words to find the catch but only coming up with:

‘What?! You know that for sure?’

Stefan shrugs. ‘To the last detail. Nick was yelling something about the heat and the grass pollen, excuses as he does. Lahyani grabbed his shoulders perhaps to calm him, and he turns and bam!' Stefan punches his own palm gently and makes the ' _and then it all exploded'_ finger wriggle. Given the Swede’s tendency to understatement, along with what Roger knows of Mo’s ability to overdramatise anything up to and including drinking his morning coffee, it’s almost certainly an accurate assessment.

‘It is the tennis tour, you know all walls are listening,' Stefan adds. 'Also, Rusedski was outside and heard everything so no doubt even those outside in the Queue are fully informed by now.’

Roger grimaces, not for the insult to Greg – it’s a standing joke in the locker room that the fastest way to spread a rumour is to make Greg promise to keep a secret – but because if it really is true, the comfort level of everyone’s press is going to plummet for the rest of the summer. Trying not to say the wrong thing to a roomful of scandal-hungry journalists is hard enough even when there _isn’t_ a scandal. And umpires getting attacked by players probably isn’t going to be topped by anything else before the off-season, even if Novak rediscovers his funny bone and plays the entire Wimbledon final pretending to be Sharapova.

Maybe, Roger reflects, retirement doesn’t sound so bad after all.

‘ _Gotverdami_ _,_ this tournament,’ Seve mutters. ‘Are we sure we are not all in a reality TV set-up? That American one punked Roddick once didn’t they?’

‘It was only a matter of time before Nick did something like this.’

The shortness of his own tone surprises even Roger, earns him puzzled looks from Seve and Stefan but he can hardly explain that the mention of Andy caught him like an unexpected fist to the stomach. Over on the next court Serena is cracking a smile as she serves and her hitting partner makes a show of diving for it, and it rubs in the fact that sitting here isn’t getting Roger closer to either knowing about Andy _or_ the Wimbledon title. Still, he feels ashamed enough of his temper to add, ‘It’s not a surprise really. He was already seriously out of line you know? Richard is hardly the kind of player to go after him for anything less.’

‘Neither are you,’ Seve says thoughtfully, ‘but if someone you were playing shouted ‘ _why don’t you just come fuck me already_ ’, you would most likely not leap the net and try to beat them up.’ He pauses to make a considering sound. ‘Do you even know _how_ to beat someone up?’

‘I’m pretty sure I could improvise something, coach,’ Roger deflects. He ignores Seve’s grin that disbelieves him in favour of pulling a racquet from the bag beside him and getting to his feet. ‘Come on then old men, stop gossiping. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me how to play tennis or something?’

‘Or something,’ Seve agrees. He glances at Stefan who waves them to carry on.

‘Go. It is your turn to try and return his forehand. I’m not feeling so much like being humiliated today.’

‘You tennis legends all think you’re so hilarious,’ Seve grumbles good-naturedly and picks up his racquet with a sigh. ‘Come on Roger. Be nice or I may decide that every practice should start with one hundred star jumps.’

‘That’s fine, I’ll just make you demonstrate for me first,’ Roger says over his shoulder. He grins at the answering burst of laughter as he heads to the side of the court closest to the crowds, reasoning that the further away they are from where his shots land, the less it matters if none of them go in. Not that he needs to worry if there’s any truth to Stefan’s story; Roger could play his entire practise standing on his head and not a single newspaper would cover it tomorrow over actual fisticuffs behind the scenes. Mo’s not likely to hide in the wings either; Roger would bet his favourite car that the umpire’s back on court tomorrow, smiling beneath his black eye and enjoying every camera flash in his direction. This story is going to run for _months_.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, really; he’d said _it was only a matter of time_ for Nick, but the same could be said for all of them. Jamie Murray, rival to Richard for the title of Most Easy-Going Man on Tour, pinned his doubles partner against the wall in the locker room yesterday after he’d mocked their chances in the tournament. It took half the guys there to pull them apart and though they’d grudgingly apologised, watching from the door to the showers Roger could see their hands trembling as they shook on it, the whiteness of their knuckles as they gripped just past the edge of too-tight. After two weeks of similar scenes on repeat all over Wimbledon, it didn’t even rate a spate of gossip in whispers as they left.

This entire tournament has been heightened tempers and players colliding instead of brushing things off. It might’ve been _only a matter of time_ but there’s an edge of guilt when Roger thinks of his easy dismissal of Nick getting what he deserved. In truth, maybe he was just unlucky to be in an office with officials when he did what the rest of them have been getting away with for days.

Too late, not the first time he’s said something he’d regret though and at least this time it wasn’t to a roomful of journalists. He can make up for it maybe, do some damage control when he inevitably gets asked about it in press and he walks to the baseline feeling a little calmer with the resolve.

Stefan catches up with him to hand over a couple of tennis balls. ‘Worry not so much.’ he says as Roger takes them. ‘Novak had almost won but two racquets broken and he had to go off court after a fall, when he ran down a ball he should have left. Everyone is as angry as each other this week eh? Work on being least angry and you will be fine.’

‘Don’t worry, be happy, win Wimbledon, got it,’ Roger says, and Stefan pats him on the shoulder with a laugh before retreating to the side lines.

‘Already you are better at those things than most. You’ll be fine.’

It’s nothing, standard coach pep talk but somehow it soothes the restless itch beneath Roger’s skin down to a murmur he can ignore. Even the shouts from the crowd behind him seem to mute and he settles into his serving stance easily, giving Seve across the net his best innocent face, the one that occasionally still (almost) fools Mirka.

‘Ninety down the line,’ he calls and serves at least one hundred-twenty out wide because he’s owed one for the remark about his mood earlier.

Payback is swift though because, after this long, Seve’s wise to all his tricks and lunges the right way to get a racquet on it. It’s a wild mishit that nevertheless skims the net and drops impossibly in court and running for it too fast, no hope of reaching it but damned if he loses the _first point_ in _practice_ , Roger’s feet hit a dust patch in the grass.

As his feet skid from under him he just has time for, of all things, a flash of resignation at what an idiot he’s about to look before he’s gone, his shoulder and side hitting the dirt and grass with a thud, racquet sliding away into the net.

For a second it’s all he can do to lie there, breathing in dust and blinking dizzily at the world gone abruptly sideways. Then Stefan’s face blocks out the light overhead, offering a hand to help him up while his eyebrows do something complicated between concern and amusement.

‘Roger! You okay?’

‘Humiliated,’ Roger mutters as he lets himself be pulled to his feet, waving at Seve who was starting towards them. ‘Nothing broken. I think-’ Twisting, he tries to peer under his t-shirt at the back of his ribs, squinting through the shadow before he gives up and yanks the shirt off entirely.

As if his dignity hasn’t taken enough of a beating already, from the watching crowds there’s an actual smattering of _applause_.

He makes a strident effort to ignore it in favour of poking the red mark on his side. ‘Just bruised,’ he tells Stefan. He flaps out the t-shirt to wriggle back into it, until he realises not only has the fall left a grass stain all up the right side but the white cotton is more brown with ingrained dust. Even washing might not salvage it.

It doesn’t _matter_ , not when Roger gets sent new wardrobes of the things each week, but he’d liked this one. It’s lurked around his suitcase since 2009, since he dug it out from the rumpled sheets of his rented bed and tossed it into the suitcase beside the gleaming trophy. For him, careless of the clothes he’s paid to wear, that practically makes it an antique.

‘I’ll get you another one before any of your adoring masses faint,’ Stefan says, obviously reading the dismay in his face. He’s retreating to the chairs and bags before Roger can point out that’s hardly likely; he’s always thought the wolf-whistles he gets on court are more kindly patronising than heartfelt. It doesn’t mean he isn’t careful not to look up at the crowds as he drops the ruined shirt into a sad pile of fabric by the net post, retrieves his racquet and looks around for the ball.

‘Roger!’

Surprised to hear his name from the next court, he looks up to find Serena coming towards him, tennis ball in hand. _His_ tennis ball he realises, and pulls a rueful face as he accepts it from her.

‘Sorry. Hope I didn’t disrupt your warm up.’

‘It’s fine.’ Serena smiles at him, brushing her sweat-damp hair back in the oddly-bashful way she has for a woman capable of rendering half the men’s tour speechless with nothing but a glance. Years ago Andy told Roger that she found _him_ a bit intimidating, which Roger found ludicrous to the point of disbelief – if there’s anyone who’d understand the discrepancy between _legend_ and _person_ , it’s Serena – but when he’d voiced that to Andy he’d been granted an uncommonly serious glare.

 _Just be nice_ , he’d ordered and Roger obediently tried that little bit harder not to be in any way Roger Federer, tennis legend, whenever they crossed paths. It must’ve worked because she’s crouching now to look at the pre-bruise on his ribs, poking it with an unselfconscious finger.

‘You’ll live,’ she offers, straightening up, and Roger laughs.

‘Good to know.’ He’s about to seize the opportunity to segue into small talk he can steer towards Andy – _how about this weather, I guess Andy was smart to delay, by the way do you know his flight number and when he’s likely to show up so I don’t make a crashing fool of myself if I bump into him in the corridor_ – when he’s distracted by Serena staring over his shoulder, her smile clouding with concern.

‘Roger,’ she says tentatively, ‘does that happen at all your practices?’

‘What do-’ he starts as he turns and loses the rest of the question to the shock, crawling down his spine like cold fingertips. ‘Oh.’

The practice courts have fences, Wimbledon-issue green chain-link, all covered chest-high with green tarpaulin for protection from wayward tennis balls. The alleyway between court and the high wall behind is narrow, maybe room for four people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder; Roger once heard an official complain that the only reason everyone in it didn’t go down like dominoes every time someone trips is lack of space for anyone to fall.

From the look of it, every available inch is now crammed full of tennis fan. They’ve climbed the fence for a better view, a heaving mob of people disproportionately clad in red wedged precariously on the shoulders of those climbing underneath and the entire stretch of chain-link is bowing ominously with the weight.

As Roger and Serena watch in mute shock, one link gives with a sharp _ping_ that echoes across the practice courts.

Worse, the instant they realise Roger’s looking a ragged cheer goes up from the crowd, the chain-link rippling like a wave as everyone fights for a view. A girl high on the fence waves frantically, loses her grip and tumbles; despite being too far to help, Roger takes half a futile step forward before the sheer mass of people behind her breaks her fall.

‘Do you think they’ve bribed the stewards to let them start a riot?’ Serena asks. She sounds like she’s only half-joking, shifting her weight back to her heels and with a start Roger realises she’s bracing herself to run. From a riot-in-the-making. At _Wimbledon_.

He _refuses_ to add ‘first player to start a riot at Wimbledon’ to his list of broken records. For one thing, between that and Nick the journalists would have enough material to scream scandal from every headline in the world until New York and the thought of an entire summer biting his tongue through every interview makes him want to call his retirement press conference right now.

And for another, Novak would never let him hear the end of it.

‘I know someone has to break that up,’ he says grimly. He glances across to see Stefan standing by the chairs, clean t-shirt hanging forgotten from one hand as he stares at the sagging fence. Roger’s about to wave for his attention when Seve hurries that way. After a brief exchange Stefan disappears up the steps into the player’s building at a run, but Seve jogs across to Roger.

‘Stefan’s gone to shout until they clear that lot away, maybe turn a garden hose on them,’ he says, deliberately getting between Roger and Serena, and the fence. ‘Hi Serena. Sorry about the invading army.’

Serena shakes her head, eyes still on the crowd who’re grumbling now their view is obscured by Seve’s back, dull murmur of sound hanging wordless in the air. ‘It isn’t your fault,’ she says. ‘Though Roger-’

Her mouth pulls in tight, hesitating, as if she doesn’t quite believe what she’s about to say. ‘Look, unless this week gets a lot weirder than it already is, we aren’t going to play each other so you know I’ve got no ulterior motive for saying this, okay – but I think you should go back inside. Just in case.’

‘Agreed,’ Seve says before Roger can even open his mouth. When the _ping_ of another link snapping punctuates it, undercut by whispers from the huddled groups of players and teams across the courts who aren’t even making a pretence at practice anymore, Roger realises he doesn’t have the inclination to argue.

‘I haven’t even played any tennis,’ he says, wishing it didn’t slip out so forlorn. ‘All I did was take my shirt off.’

When Serena flashes a smile at him, it’s startlingly broad and undeniably teasing – apparently _intimidating_ is the last thing he is right now. ‘Welcome to how it feels to be a woman in sport.’

‘Laugh and you will actually find yourself asking Kyrgios if he needs a new coach,’ Roger warns Seve, whose concern is spectacularly failing to cover his amusement. The other Swiss makes a valiant effort to look serious, although his mouth keeps tugging up.

‘Sure Roger. Come on, we should get inside before your nipples cause mass hysteria.’

‘No more bonuses for Christmas, even if I play ‘til I’m fifty,’ Roger calls at his back as he retreats across the court. He regrets pitching it so loud when he gets a few catcalls from the horde on the fence and then flinches as other fans apparently take offense and a scuffle breaks out, shaking the fence links with a worryingly-loose rattle. Definitely could be time to beat a less-than-dignified retreat before it gives way but then he spots Stefan, down the end of the path, and hesitates.

His coach strides up at the head of a small platoon of stewards and pointing the rabble out to them as if to say, _see?!_ Roger’s too far away to tell if the lead steward’s face goes pale, but even at this distance there’s a noticeable flinch.

After a hasty conference, most of the Wimbedon staff start to push their way through the crowd to reach those on the fence, separating some fans out to be led – or manhandled – away. Stefan surveys the operation with his arms folded and an expression Roger recognises, both from his own days of childhood rebellion and from occupying the opposing side more recently; it’s the _you will clear your mess up or there’ll be no ice cream for dessert_ face. If Roger wasn’t due a grovelling apology from the Wimbledon director’s office before, he suspects he’ll almost certainly be waking up to one tomorrow.

In the far distant past, playing the _who-would-you-be_ game at tennis school, he clearly remembers his awkward teenage self insisting that Stefan Edberg was the greatest and anyone who disagreed was an idiot. It’s a little comforting to realise, two decades later, that his awkward teenage self was 100% right.

Even with an army of stewards however, the crowd is pressed in a tight-knit mass and the progress is slow, fence bowing further as more fans try to climb before they’re evicted. It’s stupid for him to be standing here staring and he turns back to Serena, aware he’s flushing and awkward.

‘Sorry again,’ he starts again, intending to finish _good luck for the match_ but she cuts him off.

‘Roger, this might not be called for but-’ She hesitates again, lip caught between her teeth in indecision. ‘I mean, you know Andy’s flying in today right? He said he’d told you.’

Too late, Roger realises he’s lit up into a smile and hastily pulls it in at the corners, toning it down to merely _polite_ before it edges too far towards _unbalanced_. ‘Yes,’ he says, striving for nonchalance and hints with all the finesse and subtly of a stampeding riot of tennis fans, ‘not what time though?’

Serena doesn’t take the bait. She glances at the fence, at the clawing, shouting crowd, and back to him with a curve of her mouth that’s all surface, too worried to be called a smile.

‘I guess that’s okay then. You know, if you’ve spoken. Maybe keep an eye out for him though.’

Roger’s nodding, perplexed, – he can’t admit he’ll be looking for Andy around every corner regardless, can’t bring himself to ask if Andy’s told her he’s planning to avoid him – already turning away when she adds, ‘Oh, and Roger?’

When he glances back she’s still frowning at the fence, watching it bow inward with a distant expression that Roger recognises. It’s the careful blank they all cultivate for the moments that matter on court, when letting the anxiety claw free might mean the difference between a point won or lost. An expression that’s a tell in itself if you’re across the net and speak your opponent’s body language, only Serena is Andy’s close friend, not Roger’s, and all he can see is shuttered concern.

‘Yes?’ he asks, cautious.

‘Put a shirt on before you go inside alright?’

  ****

****

* * *

 

 

**_Wednesday (2nd week, a.m., later)_ **

****

Game plan or not, they barely make it down the walkway and into Centre’s gleaming lobby before Andy groans wordless anguish through clenched teeth and slams Roger back against the Champions’ board, kicking aside the hideous wicker chairs beneath it and crowding him in, pinned and spread out for the taking. Kisses him until Roger’s head swims with the lack of oxygen, chest tight like he might drown in this and Andy’s blunt fingers teasing over soft, hot skin, like he already knows every nerve and vein of Roger by heart.

In the moment, losing his grip on thought and sense, Roger can’t form words, can’t seem to catch the breath stuttering in lungs even when Andy drags his mouth down, sucking a hickey into the curve of his neck with a sharp thrill of pain. Tipping his head back against the board, the pristine green and gold list of Wimbledon’s elite, he submits to Andy’s exploring touch because, simply, it’s everything he wants. The echo of Andy’s admission on court echoes in his mind, _wanted this for years_ , and intoxicated by touch, the willing clay beneath Andy’s shaping hands, he’s almost ready to believe it’s true.

Lifting his arms obediently when Andy tugs off his t-shirt, there’s brief darkness beneath the fabric. Andy’s mouth is back on his before the shirt’s even off, Roger fumbling a hand blindly to curl behind his neck and keep him there.

‘All those times I watched you,’ Andy breathes into the kiss, groping over bare skin into the jeans Roger hadn’t bothered to fasten before they stumbled off court, ‘every time you won I watched you stand here, they always showed it in the fucking locker room, and I wanted- I _wanted_ - _’_

His fingers wrap over Roger’s cock beneath his underwear, dizziness and heat coiling through Roger at the rough drag of skin. He fists a hand in Andy’s shirt at the hollow of his back as an anchor, knotting cotton tight, tight around his fingers because he can’t take back the heartbreak but he can keep Andy here, close and breaking him apart with a rough, sure touch.

‘You deserved the win, you know that,’ he pants, feeling the sweat-slick slide of his shoulders across the board when he arcs into Andy’s hands, bracing himself with a grip on Andy’s shoulder as teeth nip his lip, his tongue, sharp frissons of pain over the restless burn of arousal. Thinks he hears Andy laugh but there’s a roaring in his ears that could be a memory-echo of the crowd when he looked at Andy across the net, half a lifetime ago, sunshine dying overhead.

Or perhaps it’s the thump of his heartbeat, racing faster for this than match points, even faster than the first time a smiling paediatric nurse handed him a swaddled ball of tiny limbs and his own frown in miniature.

This isn’t more important than that _of_ _course_ , he amends that line of thought in guilty haste. In the quantitative rating of his life milestones, a distant exercise for one day when he’s reflecting on records instead of breaking them, there’s still a chance this could be ranked in as nothing more than a fumbled mistake. Just an awkward handjob with a player he’s not-quite-good-friends with, not even something most of the tour would rate A-grade locker room gossip.

Although, if he's honest, doing it in the middle of Centre Court might raise a few eyebrows _._

It is more fragile, though. It’s his heart beating a little faster in panic, perhaps, that Andy will remember all the reasons not to do this, when Roger’s already forgetting why he resisted, why he looked at Andy’s smile back when they were both young enough to be stupid and thought _there’s trouble_ instead of _that’s beautiful_. In a brief instant of clarity he wonders, if Andy _really_ wants this (him), why did it take them so long?

Of course, Andy’s pulse is an echoing-fast tattoo against his palm and they’re both still high on the flowers, consumed and burning with it. The sweetness is vivid when he gasps in air, sickly and dizzying, and unexplained. They still don’t know what this is doing to them, how long it’ll last - if it’s potentially a banned substance, _fuck_. Roger wonders hazily how he might explain that one to the media, _we didn’t realise we were breathing it in_ a thin excuse at best. This might yet turn into a scandal even if no one catches them with Andy’s hand down his jeans.

A frantic sound wrenches out between his teeth at that thought, wordless defiance to the world that’s pushed them so helplessly together and might punished them for it just as easily. It’s not fair; it’s his, _theirs_ now, and he’ll crash and burn before he gives it up.

‘Hey,’ Andy murmurs, leaning back far enough for focus. He’s frowning even with pupils blown wide, and breathless, lips slick-red and puffy from the stubble Roger hadn’t bothered to shave earlier. ‘You okay? I didn’t mean I blame you for winning, I just- I want you to know this is okay, you know - for me.’ It’s hard to tell beneath the flush of arousal but it could be a blush over his cheeks, unexpected shyness in the way his eyes flicker to Roger’s mouth and then down to the floor as he confesses hoarsely, ‘You know I like you – I’ve never exactly been subtle about it, that’s been pretty obvious, but not like- I mean if it’s okay, I like you like _this_ too.’

‘So, you’ve got me,’ Roger gasps, rocking on the balls of his feet to push into Andy’s hand and the resulting squeeze rips a cry from between gritted teeth, head thumping back against the wall. He can’t deny even to himself that he’s thrilled at the admission, at Andy offering up pieces of himself he usually keeps hidden, but he’s losing his grip on words until it’s all he can do to grit out, ‘do anything you want.’

Because he can’t give back the Wimbledon trophies, he can’t travel back in time to miss that shot that broke Andy’s serve in ’09, but he can do this. Give himself up completely to Andy’s touch, to the glazed desire in his eyes as he stares at Roger, assessing – but the grin that curls out when he realises Roger means it is wicked and playful together, and Roger just has time to wonder if ceding himself without limit was wise when the hand vanishes from his cock and both his wrists are caught in a tight grip.

‘What I want,’ Andy breathes, raising Roger’s arms up over his head to pin them hard against the board, and there’s something distant in his eyes as he moves in, the shadow of something Roger’s afraid to touch in case it’s damage he caused, fault lines he hammered deep over points, and sets, and bitter losses. ‘That’s pretty brave, giving me that much licence. You should know,’ and he dips forward, mouth dragging a wet line along Roger’s jaw, up, teeth sharp on Roger’s earlobe as he murmurs, ‘I’m greedy. I want a lot of things.’

Pinned between Andy’s grip and the thigh pushing between his legs, hazed with arousal and desperation, Roger can’t think of a single thing he’d deny Andy in this moment. It’s almost frightening to remember that he’s married, that he has no claim to the chapped kisses Andy’s brushing over his mouth, or any right to the steady hand reaching down again to work him closer to the edge with every breath, but somehow he’s got them anyway. Everything else in his life he’s felt that he’s earned; this, in comparison, he hadn’t even dared to hope for.

Briefly the worry flickers how he’s going to explain all this to Mirka but it’s easy to shy from the sting of it, nothing clear in the dizzy whirl of his thoughts except Andy’s warm touch, the firm grip holding him up. He’s sure he couldn’t stop now, even if he – they - wanted to. And she’d _said_ it was okay if it was Andy-

‘Eyes on the ball now, Rog,’ Andy says, breathless. When Roger opens his eyes – he hadn’t even realised he’d screwed them shut – he’s met with the twinkle of mischief Andy used to throw at him in interviews and exhibitions sometimes, whenever they didn’t have to be tennis players first and friends second. It looks exactly the same as it always did across the net, in front of cheering crowds, but this time Roger grins back through the soft focus blur at the corners of his vision, feeling it stretch wide and unselfconscious because there’s no one here now to see him grinning affectionately at Andy Roddick. The lobby still looks empty as far as he can see, half-hidden as they are in the alcove up against the Champion’s Board, and somehow they’re getting away with this.

This- whatever it is. He’s still not sure.

It’s hard to worry when he’s balanced blissfully on the edge, white-hot pleasure trembling beneath the give and take of Andy’s hand and the flowers muddling his thoughts, dizzy and drunk on the sweetness. Still, there’s not a high in the world to compete with two decades of practising relentless focus and it nags like a shot he can’t quite hit, like an angle he’s not considered, until he can’t help but push.

‘You never said,’ he gasps, words slipping out unconsidered and Andy quirks a questioning eyebrow. When he twists his wrist just _so,_ Roger shakes and laughs a protest at the distraction, clinging to coherence by his fingertips. ‘You know,’ he manages to grit out, ‘what you want.’

Even through the dizzy blur the way Andy’s smirk softens is enough to cue a startled shyness, clenching like a fist in Roger’s chest. Just has a glimpse of it, open and honest, before Andy ducks his head down to hide the fond smile against the corner of Roger’s mouth.

‘Come on Roger,’ he murmurs. Teasing, in the familiar way Andy has of making a joke out of something true. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

Hands pinned up over his head - over, he thinks, his own name stamped in gold, champion defiled below his altar - Roger groans and bucks up beneath a twist of Andy’s hand, and the dam breaks. He comes with his vision whiting out and Andy's name, pitched as a question, caught as a sob in his throat.

After, when he's breathed himself back to the edge of sanity, any thought of chasing the question further gets derailed. Andy's curved over him with his own breathing desperately fast now, hips jerking in aborted thrusts of self-restraint against Roger's thigh and the one-handed grip holding Roger’s wrists up against the wall gone slack, unfocused.

He pulls free, dropping a hand to thumb lightly over Andy’s mouth and tracing the soft, wet skin where Andy’s bitten his lip, soothing. That gets him a half-lidded look, Andy’s eyes glassy and dark, although he’s alert enough to swipe out his tongue to catch on Roger’s fingertips.

Now Roger’s easing down from the high and into a lull of clarity from the pollen haze, he’s aware of the heat radiating from Andy’s skin like he’s running fever-hot, sweat easing the slide of Roger’s fingertips against his cheek. Concern flickers beneath the weight of his exhaustion, a cool note beneath the banked heat of arousal waiting to flare back up; they really should be washing the pollen off instead of pressing each other up against the walls. Golden streaks of it smear Andy’s face as he tries to wipe it them away, succeeding only in staining his own fingertips yellow. Even Andy’s eyelashes are dusted with it, clumps of vivid yellow against the sweep of black, clinging through his rapid blinks as he finally focuses enough to produce a dazed smile.

‘Looks like you’ve got _me_ now, eh Feds?’ he pants out, the effort it’s taking for him to stay still written over his face in furrows of tension. ‘Gonna do something with that?’

Roger doesn’t say _I always had you_ because no matter how long Andy’s wanted this, it’s not as if Roger _realised_ – apparently the only place he’s ever had Andy’s measure was on a tennis court, and knowing how to return a serve might’ve won him plenty of shiny cups over the years but hasn’t granted him any special Andy insight at _all_. He’s got Andy helpless and strung out beneath his hands as surely as in any of their matches. Except this time, he has no idea where to go.

So instead he drops his hand from Andy’s face to get a fistful of shirt collar and reels the American in for a kiss, brief and hard and wanting. When he leans back, Andy tilts forward with a choked off sound before he catches himself with a hand against the wall.

‘What can I do?’ Roger asks, a little teasing to cover his uncertainty. They’re so close, he can feel the too-quick huff of Andy’s breath against his lips. ‘I said anything and I meant it. Come on Roddick, don’t make me do all the work.’

Andy’s lips curve on his, no doubt to a grin. ‘God, the mouth on you. You could put that to better use for a start.’

It’s a joke probably, the patented Andy Roddick flippancy that made his press so popular, but Roger’s not above taking it as a challenge. It helps that the wall is the only thing keeping him upright by now and it’s a relief to let gravity slide him down between it and Andy, polished wood hard when he lands on his knees. The gleaming lobby, the startled sound from Andy, it’s all hazed into nothing by the hot clench of want that says this isn't over, not even close, but Roger can see everything he needs; the fastening of Andy’s pants, belt left open _thankfully_ because Roger’s focus – and manual dexterity with it – is fading fast. He’s got the zipper open and both layers pulled down before Andy’s hand finds a grip in his hair and by then the sharp tug can’t stop him.

Leaning in, he presses his lips to Andy’s cock before he can lose his nerve. It’s been a while, longer than he’s going to consider, but there’d been plenty of enthusiastic practise before that, and from the flushed-hard skin against his tongue he doubts very much that Andy’s going to _mind._ Bracing a hand on one tensed thigh, he takes a breath and opens his mouth far enough to let Andy in.

Somewhere overhead Andy makes a startled sound around his name, jerked out on the edge of too-loud. Roger’s never going to be able to stand in this lobby without hearing the echo of it but he doesn’t care, not when rendering Andy Roddick incoherent is up there with winning Slams in terms of achievement. If there was a Champions’ Board for _that_ , it’d be a short list.

For the first time – infuriatingly, his mind seizing the moment of clarity to wander and no, it’s not as if he doesn’t have slightly more _pressing_ things to focus on right now – it occurs to Roger to wonder who else might be on that list. More than a handful of women all legs and breasts, Mirka remarking once that Andy collected blond models like trading cards. But there’d never been a guy, not that Roger heard about.

Then again, he doubts Andy heard anything (true) about him either. Tennis isn’t the most hyper-masculine sport around but no one with any sense goes around getting blowjobs from guys in the showers either.

Well. Maybe they didn’t before _this_. Whatever _this_ _is._

From the sounds Andy’s making as Roger hollows his cheeks, there’s nothing to suggest he cares it’s a man’s mouth on his dick. Or rather that he cares that Roger isn’t a blond model, and never has been, ill-advised youthful mistakes with hair dye (thankfully) discounted. Andy’s thighs are trembling under his hands, the muted sounds overhead turning increasingly desperate, and there’s salt-sour precome flooding Roger’s mouth that says Andy’s totally on board with this turn of events, despite the hand still tangled in Roger’s hair and pulling a touch past painful.

It’s all too easy to fall back into the rhythm but there’s a discordant note, sharp enough to keep him focused; the taste on his tongue is familiar and alien all together. The bitterness is nothing remarkable, half-remembered from a lifetime ago, but he’s pretty sure the improbable honey-sweetness alongside it is all new. It’s impossible to tell if it’s from the pollen they’re covered in, as if they’d been dusted with powdered sugar, or if it’s lacing the wet-salt taste of Andy like something ingrained, like the pollen is sinking beneath their skin already.

That can’t be good. Maybe it was stupid to think showering might be enough when they’re both so turned on that they’re dizzy with it, heat already aching again in the pit of Roger’s stomach and flaring brighter with every gasp from Andy, but it’s been less than half an hour since they walked out on court. They _can’t_ have breathed that much in; they would’ve choked on it.

At the next burst of sweetness he hums a concerned sound at the back of his throat, wonders if he should stop despite the instinctive rejection at the thought. Even if they’re making it worse, pulling back from Andy right now would be cruel.

Andy clearly interprets the sound a little differently. The quiver of muscles betrays his attempt to still the rock of his hips, tugging hard on his handful of hair in a wordless demand and Roger hums an inadvertent growl at the way the pain thrills all the way down, sharp over nerves already rubbed raw. Oxygen deprivation is tight in his chest and sparkling the darkness behind his eyelids but for all the newsprint that’s been wasted on him over the years, the endless articles detailing his stubbornness were more than journalistic fancy. He might lose, more frequently now than once upon a time of glory days, but he doesn’t quit.

Relaxing his throat in half-remembered technique, he swallows until Andy is babbling incoherent sounds over his head, thrusting rough with control disintegrated to nothing. In no time at all he gasps a strangled approximation of _‘Roger_ ,’ and jerks. Roger doesn't pull back even slightly at the warning, first spurt of come spilling down his throat.

He gets in one swallow before he has to lean back, letting Andy slip from between his lips with a wet sound as he coughs, rasping, as he works Andy through with his hand, awkward and come hitting his cheek, the corner of his mouth. There’s still that odd sweet aftertaste that he chases with his tongue automatically, lips sore and air whistling heavy in pollen-choked lungs as he tries to catch his breath.

It’s only when the swimming dizziness clears enough for him to focus again, all pale skin and dark hair through open pants in front of him, half-hidden in the shadow of Andy above, body-warmth through the thin suit fabric as he leans his aching head against Andy's thigh, only then does he hear Andy swearing soft and continuous. He’s leaning against the wall, hands splayed across the names of everyone who’s won Wimbledon, everyone _else_ but him, voice cracking as he apologises between every other word.

‘Fuck fuck Roger, sorry, fucking hell. I didn’t mean you actually had to do that. _Fuck_. I'm so sorry.’

‘Hey,’ Roger's startled by the sandpaper-rasp of his own voice, desire curling heavy over the words because he’s already half-hard again, ‘Andy. It’s okay, I wanted to. I have done it before you know,’ he adds with a half-laugh that’s meant diffuse the tension.

It’s only when the silence drags out that he remembers no, Andy probably didn’t know that at all.

He tips his aching head back to lean against the wall, grimacing for the protest from his knees at the shift of weight. Andy’s staring down at him between his braced arms, mouth open on wordless surprise and Roger gives him the best eyebrow-raise-don’t-be-ridiculous face he’s cultivated over the years for particularly irritating journalists.

‘I _did_ have a life before Mirka, you know.’

A blink and then Andy grins down at him, easy and bright even when Roger can see his arms trembling with the strain of holding himself up.

‘No, really?’ he says, still out of breath, ‘I figured tennis gods just sprang into existence fully-formed and ready to make the rest of us look bad at age twenty. No awkward teenage sex for you, I don’t believe it.’

Humming a half-serious note of disagreement Roger shakes his head, embarrassed enough to glance away from the sharp gleam of Andy’s curiosity. ‘There was plenty. Not as much as _some_ people had maybe, but enough awkward for anyone.’

His shins are starting to feel like one giant bruise so he shifts, easing back to sit properly and draw his legs up because there’s hardly any room with Andy crowding him up against the wall. The arousal is starting to ramp up again but he clenches his fists, willing it quiet for a _minute_ , honestly. Still-

‘You want to come down here?’ he says, ignoring all the reasons that’s probably a terrible idea, getting closer again, ‘How are you even standing right now?’

‘Orgasm inertia,’ Andy groans but he lets himself fold down nonetheless, hands sliding down the wall to bracket Roger’s shoulders. He’s gleaming all over with sweat, dark-eyed with blown pupils and desire, thinning hair sticking up like a windblown haystack but he’s grinning as he settles to his knees in front of Roger. There’s something warm like laughter playing at the corners of his mouth.

‘Hey,’ he murmurs, ‘you got a little-’

Instead of finishing, he moves a hand to curl against Roger’s jaw, swipes a thumb over his cheek. It takes a second but Roger feels the wet smear, realises – Andy’s wiping away his own come, _god_ , and he flushes in mortification, looking away because he forgot for a second there what this was.

Andy huffs an amused sound but softly, his touch gentle as he leans in to drop a kiss on the damp spot.

‘Roger Federer, secret teenage rebel,’ he murmurs without pulling back, trailing the words along skin until he finds Roger’s mouth, puffy-lipped and raw, ‘don’t go shy on me now or I’ll think you were lying. Don’t think your reputation can take that kind of hit.’

‘I don’t think _secret teenage rebel_ would do it any favours also,’ Roger retorts, lips brushing Andy’s, digging his nails into his palms against the urge to reach out and touch. They _have_ to get to the locker room and closed doors; it’s a miracle they haven’t been caught yet.

Andy laughs, the sound silenced between the press of their mouths and surely, one more kiss can’t hurt.

 _Things I didn’t expect to be doing with Andy Roddick today_ , Roger thinks to distract himself from the flavour of addiction beneath the excuse, recognising it for the lie that it is but finding it hard to care. Andy’s tongue chases the taste of pollen and come into his mouth, warm and invasive and already easy with familiarity, the rise and fall of their shared breath like a pattern Roger could map blindfolded. Maybe he _is_ ignoring common sense because he can’t make himself stop, but he _wants_ this. Nothing, not tearing himself away, not a camera crew, not even fifteen thousand tennis fans deciding to storm the room, would change the shining certainty of that fact, he’s sure.

Humming contentment into Andy’s mouth, he blindly gropes for the American’s hand where it rests on his thigh, dragging it down to where he aches for it, tangling their fingers together over flushed skin already hard again.

‘Please,’ he breathes, Andy’s hand gone abruptly tight on his with resistance. ‘Andy, please.’

Even halfway subsumed in pollen haze, he feels Andy shiver. ‘Roger,’ he whispers, leaning back with a shock of cooler air, and then sharper – ‘ _Roger_.'

Unable to focus, everything sliding into a golden blur as sheer _want_ sings over every nerve, Roger ignores the warning to press Andy’s hand down hard, pushing into it with a gasp. Demanding with all himself laid bare because words are fast dissolving beneath the dizziness and his thoughts circle sideways into nothing but _why isn’t Andy touching him, why aren’t they fucking_ _right now_. Just the thought has him choking on a moan because, _oh_.

Andy might say something, distant hum of sound but it’s not a _yes_ so Roger can’t bring himself to care. When lips touch his throat a second later, worn rough and with the scrape of teeth sharp against his pulse, Roger swallows a cry of relief into a whimper because they’re still not behind locked doors, this is still _stupid_. It’s detached though, forgetting how to be anything like concerned through the blur of _yes, yes Andy._

He might gasp that aloud as the kiss drags down, hesitates on his collarbone before dipping lower and Roger almost sobs in relief, cock aching with the promise of Andy’s wet, beautiful mouth where it counts. Over a nipple, tongue licking out with a flare of sensation like a match to the heat banked beneath and then ribs, tracing each one with the wet press of tongue that Roger _needs_ where it counts, all else gone but the clawing ache of craving.

Which is when pain blooms like a different burn entirely, vicious-edged and it jolts Roger upright with a curse.

The dizzy haze recedes, not gone but pushed back to the edges. He blinks rapidly into focus, bracing himself against the floor as the room threatens to spin but the hickey on his chest is a bright point of pain like an anchor, grounding. Rubbing at it unthinking, he flinches back with a hiss; that’s going to bruise as badly as getting hit with a tennis ball served by- well, by Andy Roddick.

Andy’s pulled back, just far enough to meet Roger’s glare with steady concern. Looks serious even with his mouth rash-red and the fingerprints of Roger’s touch in the pollen dust over his cheeks, tension clear in the way he’s holding himself still.

‘Hey,’ he says, cautious. ‘You okay? You- had a moment. Not that I’ve been a model of coherence or anything since this started but you weren’t-’ He lifts a hand from Roger’s knee to gesture in front of his face. ‘-there.’

‘I’m right _here_ ,’ Roger rasps impatiently but Andy shakes his head.

‘Yeah, you and a shit load of flowers,’ he says. ‘And I’m not sure which one was just begging me to fuck you hours before you have to play a Wimbledon quarterfinal but I’d bet my house that wasn’t part of your game plan before you walked out on that court.’

Roger stares at him.

‘I didn’t-’ he starts before he remembers his own voice, the sense-memory of it rough in his throat as Andy kissed his way down.

He’d spoken, sure. He just has no idea what he’d said.

‘Yeah, that look of panic isn’t reassuring,’ Andy mutters and he’s _shifting back_ , loss of touch like a twist of agony that has Roger choking down a protest.

Maybe Andy has a point, though; he would’ve let the American fuck him here up against the wall, uncaring of if he could walk for his match or not. The match he hadn’t even _remembered_ and sure Centre Court is out of action but it’s Wimbledon, they’ll get the matches played even if they have to paint tramlines out on the golf course.

But then Roger can’t unpick any deceit in his want for this, drugged or not. Andy’s hands on him feels like the answer to a puzzle, pushing the pieces of him that’ve been fractured and irritable for days back into alignment but it’s everything else, too. It’s three a.m. text messages with every word misspelt in exhaustion, and it’s Andy’s nervous self-deprecation when he asked for that interview two years ago, clearly hopeful but shrugging it off as all his producer’s idea. It’s laughing together in their handful of rare practices, Andy’s shoulder pushing into his at the breaks, companionable and sleepy beneath the sticky heat of New York in summer. And it’s letting Roger watch him sob across the locker room in 2009, thrill of the win souring until Roger had to put the trophy down before he let it drop.

He can admit now in the rush of inhibitions crumbling that it’s something he buried, because he had almost everything he wanted in the world and expecting this on top felt- it felt _unfair_. How selfish, to deny Andy everything Roger took with such ease and then to ask for this, too.

‘Andy,’ he starts, soft even as he feels the dizzy pull of the pollen threatening, pressing his palms flat to the polished wooden floor to force himself to focus, to not reach and _take_. Watching him, Andy looks far more alert and they’re out of sync, Roger sinking as Andy kicks up into clarity; no wonder they can’t get this conversation right. The words are already bending into shapeless sounds in Roger’s mouth but he clings to them with the desperation of the drowning.

‘Andy, it’s okay. I forgot the match that’s all. Please, I need to-‘

‘We _need_ to shower,’ Andy cuts him off. The set of his mouth is the mulish twist that used to foreshadow yelling matches with umpires and sarcasm lashed out at journalists, words sharpened to wound. Nothing but misery thinly veneered with defensiveness and Roger knows if he pushes, this will turn into an argument he doesn’t have the coherence to win.

He’s going to try anyway, half because he wants Andy to understand and half because he really is dangerously close to begging to be touched and a fight would be less humiliating, when there’s a loud _bang_ from upstairs.

It’s a door, slamming open and followed by running footsteps and _someone is coming down the stairs._

Argument forgotten, he meets Andy’s wide eyes and they share a moment of silently communicating _we are so fucked_. They’re hidden from the top of the stairs by the curve of the wall and half-behind one of the hideous wicker chairs Wimbledon leaves as props for anyone posing for photos around the Champion’s Board but if whoever it is turns towards the court - if it’s someone coming to clean the lobby or the camera crew realising they’re late – there’s no way they’ll go unnoticed. Roger can hardly breathe for his heart racing, panic and arousal all tangled together; he can’t even coordinate himself enough to pull up his jeans.

Andy leans in, hands braced against the wall behind them as if the curve of his shoulders can hide their obvious dishevelment, come and sweat-stained all over and so close to naked no amount of clinging together could save them from indecent exposure if whoever-it-is walks past. It’s an oddly sweet gesture all the same and Roger drops his forehead to rest on the solid warmth of Andy’s shoulder, hiding his blush in the grass-stained softness of Andy’s ruined shirt. If nothing else, they can do a joint press conference and he trusts Andy to have a sarcastic comeback for all the questions they don’t want to answer.

The footsteps clatter to the bottom of the stairs, _so close,_ and Roger feels Andy’s breathing hitch. _This is it_. He wonders what words he’ll use to explain this to the media, compared to Andy. If Andy will blame it on the flowers or if he’ll look around the press room, eyes alight with his favourite brand of mischief, and admit _come on, couldn’t you all see I’ve wanted this for years? This is just the first time he said yes._

For an instant, Roger’s almost relieved because at least getting found out means this thing will have to be quantified somehow, given shape even if it’s a lie. That’ll almost be worth ruining his carefully-constructed life.

And then the owner of the footsteps turns right at the bottom of the stairs - turns _away_. Running, obviously not even glancing around and there’s the creak of the main doors to outside being pushed through and the footsteps fade to nothing.

For a moment they both hold motionless, Roger tasting the dry cotton and pollen sweetness where he breathes with his mouth buried in Andy’s shirt, trying to convince the rest of him to ease off the rush of adrenaline. Then Andy pulls away, sharp, Roger forced to catch himself with a hand on the floor; when he looks up askance, Andy’s already climbing stiffly to his feet.

‘Locker room, now,’ he says and any other time Roger might snap back at the demanding tone. Now though-

‘You might have a point,’ he agrees. He stumbles as he stands, Andy catching his elbow to hold him up as he goes lightheaded, trembling all over and he hangs on to Andy’s wrist to stop himself reaching down, hard and dizzy and right on the edge. His nails bite into skin with the force of his grip, Roger grimacing an apology but Andy doesn’t flinch.

‘We’ll talk,’ Roger says, forcing his voice steady because forming his own demands is a distraction from wondering how he’s going to make it as far as the showers in this state. ‘After- in the locker room? Alright?’

‘Sure,’ Andy agrees, glancing away. ‘Whatever. Come on, we should get out of here before anyone else com- decides to check on their precious grass.’

Roger doesn’t let go, tightening his grip and he must be leaving desperation written in finger marks on Andy’s wrist. ‘Andy,’ he says, quiet and when Andy glances back, whatever he sees on Roger’s face softens the tension written in tight lines across his frown.

‘Okay, we’ll have a group hug and share our feelings session,’ he agrees, tone serious beneath the flip response. ‘Now come on, before the only talking we’re doing is to the British tabloids yeah?’

He keeps a careful distance as they stumble up the stairs but his grip on Roger’s arm stays sure and careful, steadying him against falling and through the dizziness Roger manages to cling to a spark of hope that, just maybe, everything isn’t ruined after all.


End file.
